Dust of Life
by Little Tanuki
Summary: “Firewall” AU: The Dominion War is imminent. Tensions rise on Bajor. And Julian Bashir arrives at one of the homes for Cardassian orphans. T for Adult Themes.
1. Symbols

**Alternate Timeline: What if Julian Bashir had not been allowed to remain in Starfleet?**

**Author's Note: The following is set roughly concurrent with (beginning just slightly before) DS9 Season Five's "In the Cards", and follows on from the AU story "Firewall". It may reference some events and characters, but is not a sequel in the truest sense of the word, and therefore not necessary to have read the first story in order to understand the second. (Although of course, far be it from me to stop you.)**

**Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is not my puppy, even if it does have an occasional habit of whining and scratching at the door.**

**This story (and especially its title) was inspired in part by the lyrics below. (Not mine either.)**

**

* * *

"****_They__'__re called _Bui Doi_, the Dust of Life._**

_**Conceived in Hell, and born in strife.**_

_**They are the living reminder of all the good that we failed to do.**_

_**We can't forget, must not forget, that they're all our children too**_**.****"**

**("Bui Doi", _Miss Saigon_. Lyrics by Alain Boublil and Richard Maltby, Jr.)**

* * *

_Those who travel along the road will often find that it divides along the way. And occasionally the choice of where to go may even be their own._

"_A life in exile may not be wholly pleasant," another man had told him once, at another time and in a place so very far away. "But it does leave a man open to new adventures, which he might otherwise never have thought to experience."_

_Whichever way fate takes you, the further you move along one path, the further you will stray from where you might have been._

* * *

Her doll left footprints in the dust - two ever so slightly uneven rows of tiny, oval grooves. Prompted by a hand around its waist, it bounded purposely forward even though its destination was really not at all far from where those first steps had begun.

Mid-morning sunlight sketched clear lines around her shadow, where the ground turned to a gleaming shade of golden-tan. Some of the finer dust particles had attached themselves to the subtle pinkish grey of the young girl's arm, overlaying it with just a hint of colour.

"You'll be in trouble," said a voice from above. A second, larger shadow drifted into view.

She looked up, squinting. "Will not."

It was a boy, three years her senior and tall for his age, but also remarkably thin. His neck sloped at the shoulders, framed by a line of even ridges far more pronounced than her own - and still more so as his silhouette stepped between her slitted eyes and the light of the Bajoran sun.

He nodded towards the dust already gathered on her arms and on the lower half of her dress. "You will too, getting all dirty like that. What you doing, anyway?"

"Nuffing."

She barely even saw him move. Swooping down, the boy yanked the doll from her short, chubby fingers. "Hey!" she shouted, rising to her feet so quickly that for a moment she even felt a little dizzy. "Not funny!"

The boy laughed, and danced away from her attempts to snatch back what was hers.

"Give her back." She was running now, but her six year old legs were never a match for the boy's much longer stride. "_Lerin_!"

She caught up with him around the next corner, and found him staring at the wall. His jaw was slack, arms hanging limply at his sides, and the grey-green hue of his face had been rendered close to white. He clasped her shoulder. His hand was painfully tight, and the girl squirmed. Snatching her doll, she struggled for freedom, and looked to see what had so engaged the older boy's attention.

She knew immediately that it was writing. The smooth, flowing lines clearly marked it as Bajoran. And the satin blue of the paint was one of her favourite colours. The words were not any that she could easily understand. But the expression on Lerin's face was enough to made her shudder.

"Teyanha! Lerin!" Both children turned at the sound of their names. A familiar woman strode towards them, her single earring glinting as sunlight passed across her face and hair. But when she saw what they had seen, she stopped and beckoned hurriedly.

"Come away from there." There was tension in her words, and her skin was pale.

They hesitated.

"Now."

As she folded an arm around each bewildered child, the woman hastened to lead them away. But she continued to glance nervously behind her - almost like something was chasing them. And the scrawl of tightly packed, curving blue lines took a long time to fade from Teyanha's thoughts.

* * *

_There were three of them - a trio of pale, dark eyed ghouls, accusing from a corner of the room. Dim light and condensation draped across walls that were already scuffed and brown. And in its centre was the woman and her baby. Both of them huddled under a single moth-eaten grey blanket, both caught in a tight embrace. Both with the smell of fever, and the cold, grey pallor of death._

* * *

Rolling carefully out of bed, Julian Bashir massaged his aching neck, and yawned. _Must__'__ve slept wrongly on it last night_, he thought, although this was the first time in many days that his sleep had not been disturbed. He quietly congratulated himself for having the foresight to have walked the distance instead of taking a transport. All that exercise must have been helping after all.

But it was also making his muscles ache. _Even Augments get the blues_. A chuckle escaped him at this secret jest. He was still a little flushed - presumably from the warmth of last night's bedclothes. But it was nothing that could not be mended with a cool drink and a few splashes of water on his face. He pushed himself upright, bare feet protesting against the icy touch of the floor.

"Sleep well?" the old priest asked him as he ventured in to the main hall.

"Too well," Bashir responded with an early morning smile. He rubbed the muscles of his neck again. "Actually, so well that I didn't even realise I was sleeping badly."

The priest laughed, a warm and hearty sound. "I know _that_ feeling."

Taenor's monastery was built on the edge of a sloping hill, just a day's walk from the nearest village, three from the nearest city. Its presence was defined by a series of sculpted gardens, carved by generations of vedeks and ranjens who had taken the precise aesthetics to be a reflection of their own minds' focus - and by extension, their love of the Prophets that had allowed them this expression.

A series of pagodas and tidily curved pathways connected the four main buildings to a temple at its centre, where the monks - and anyone else - could visit any time they felt the need. Every room was clean and spacious, far more than the cramped and dusty boxes that marked the monasteries of medieval Earth. Uncluttered surroundings made for uncluttered thoughts, and the men and women who passed their lives here were dedicated to keeping them that way.

And it was in one of these rooms that Vedek Taenor had insisted his new friend stay at least a night. And if he could manage it, possibly even two. After all they had been through together, Julian told himself, it would hardly have been politic to refuse.

The old man's laughter was deep, and contagious. "Listen," said Bashir. "Thankyou again, for your hospitality."

"You found us that vaccine - it's the least we could do." Whatever else might have been said, his host waved it away and the words vanished into the breeze. "So, where are you off to today?"

"North, I suppose. Away from the coast. There's still a lot of places left to visit, but…"

Taenor's smile did not disappear entirely, but Bashir could not help but notice some tension at the corner of his lips. Trepidation crept into his reply, which faded into silence, accompanied by a gradual frown. "What is it?"

"Probably nothing." The old man shook his head. "It's just, with some of the news I've been getting from out that way… When you're lucky enough to live to my age, you do begin to sense certain things…"

He chuckled, leaving Bashir feeling vaguely uneasy - even more than he had upon waking. "Oh, don't listen to this foolish old man," he said. "Take care of yourself, won't you? And stay in touch. I did enjoy our conversations."

* * *

Scurrying close to the edge of their run-down home, each hand wrapped tightly around the arm of a startled child, Jaliya Tal's pace did not slow until she was well past the threshold and safely indoors. Vali was there, and glanced her way with curious dark eyes. But as soon as she saw their expressions, she put down the stylus she'd been holding thoughtfully against her mouth, and rose to her feet with an unspoken query already forming on her lips.

_No time to explain_, Jaliya wanted to tell her, but suspected that it was desire she lacked far more than opportunity. As the eldest of the ten grey skinned children now still living at the Centre, with maturity and self-control that went well beyond her thirteen years, it was sometimes easy to forget that Vali was barely more than a child herself.

And the same question had been in Teyanha's eyes from the moment she'd first been called away. Guilt pierced Jaliya's heart as the six year old hurried to escape from her too-tight grip. Lerin was slower, determined to keep his dignity intact, but it was clear that he was equally unnerved.

The oldest of them wrapped slender grey arms around the shoulders of the youngest. But her silent gaze still questioned. Jaliya was not at all sure that she had a proper answer.

"I'm going to need you to help me watch the others, just for a few minutes," she told Vali. "And whatever you do, don't go outside. That goes for all of you."

She pointed to the younger ones, who nodded mutely. Teyanha wrapped her hands even more tightly around the shoulders of her doll.

_As long as she's not out there_. Of course, it was no bad thing that the girl was probably too young to understand exactly what it meant. But Jaliya would still have to do something about that bright blue graffiti before somebody got it into their head to tell her.

* * *

At the edge of one of the nearby glades, sunbeams bright against their eyes, a cluster of children watched the stranger's approach.

"Human," whispered one. "Aliens from across the galaxy. Rayla saw them on that old station. They say he knows the Emissary."

They stared. It was not uncommon to see aliens in their system, but unusual that they should venture into their obscure little valley. The tall man turned to them, and smiled.

Laughing and squealing, they span around and half ran, half slid away between the trees.

* * *

Bashir shook his head and smirked quietly to himself as he continued to cut a path across the smooth grass of the hill.

He could have used a transport station - or even boarded one of the smooth-moving vehicles that regularly left for the inland regions. But the previous night's dreams had left him restless, agitated. He needed to walk.

He thought about the stark, textured cliffs of Dakhur Province, where even the most determined grasses struggled to maintain a hold. _Kira__'__s home_, he reminded himself, and his quiet smile broadened still further. _It suits her_. Secretly, he was surprised at how little he'd considered the station in the past few days, or even his friends. Although he supposed what people said was truer than he'd imagined. Time always moved rapidly for those whose hands were busy, with barely a moment to pause and catch a breath.

_The group of scientists had taken just over a week to document some of the planet's hidden ecosystems, many concealed by steep-walled fractures in the ground. Bashir had begun to wonder if any of the plants they found could have some medicinal value, and had taken very little time to convince Keiko O'Brien to help him set up a research station._

Kendra was so different, it could have been a different world. Fields of constant green, illuminated by the golden light of mid-morning, stretched from horizon to horizon into gently upward hills. Almost like something out of a fairy tale. _And there you go, romanticising again. It was romantic notions of heroism and adventure that brought you this far in the first place, or is it that long ago that you__'__ve forgotten already_?

It was an exile, of sorts. He would never practise medicine in the Federation again. But while this world remained outside of the Federation, its people had little concern for what had led him this far. People still got sick, and Bajor needed doctors.

The first thing to do would be to find somebody who knew the surrounding area, who could help him make absolutely certain that not a single farm was missed. It would have been easier simply to put up a notice in the nearest central location. But farmers, he had discovered increasingly during his time on the planet, were notoriously difficult to locate. He'd found himself wondering - on more occasions than one - if they didn't deliberately seek out the remotest, darkest, muck filled corner they could find and remain there throughout the day, just to avoid a visit from a travelling medicine man.

It certainly wasn't where he would have guessed he'd be five years ago. Still, there was a cheerful wind on his face, which carried the smell of sweet, fresh leaves. His shoulder bag was a little heavy across his chest, but not so much that it mattered. And the air around him was pleasantly warm. If his task had not been so important, he could just about believe that he was simply out for a morning stroll.

But for the lingering memory of his dreams.

* * *

_The woman had little to say as far as he could tell. Her eyes looking into his own were swollen and bloodshot, so much that there was hardly any white to see. Their lids were stained an inky violet, reminding him of a baby bird he'd once seen lying dead upon the ground, and strands of smooth, brown hair were stuck to her forehead and darkened with sweat. But she sought his face. Pleaded, begged, eyes showing all the pain that she could no longer express in words._

_Slender, trembling fingers brushed weakly against his forearm, as the woman reached forward with a hand so emaciated that the bones of her wrist and knuckles were sharp beneath her skin. Her slitted gaze shifted weakly to her right, where another bed had been set up parallel to her own. It was barely visible, blanketed in shadow, and the shape of a man was stretched all the way along its mattress._

"_I'll take care of your father," Julian promised in a close, hushed whisper, clutching her hand in both of his own. "It's your turn to rest now."_

_Her lips parted into a faint smile, and quivered as though in an attempt to speak. Finally, she closed her eyes._

_The young man turned his weary face to where Taenor had been watching by the door. The priest's eyes were mirrors, echoing the pain that Julian still felt deep within his heart. "How could I tell her?" he whispered. "What would be the point?"_

_Taenor nodded. At least he seemed to understand. They doubted anyone would ever figure out the answer, not with any degree of satisfaction: How to tell a dying young woman that her father was already dead?_

* * *

A strange apparition leant against the largest of three heavy, thick-limbed trees, dressed in a loose fitting tunic and mud-brown trousers that didn't quite reach his ankles. It was something of a surprise to see a boy on the deserted road. Even more to note that same child's smooth, black hair and skin partly covered by shallow grey scales. Bashir's first instinct was to stop, and he was ashamed to find that he was staring.

_Cardassian_?

"Hello," he said.

Standing upright, the boy was tall, a little stocky, but not yet fully grown. His eyes were striking, dark and clear like two river-washed pebbles. They narrowed warily, and he approached a few steps. Julian noted an alarmingly pronounced limp - but some instinct still held him back. This was not the first time he had seen such clear distrust on the face of a Cardassian child.

After a moment's tense silence, the boy turned and hobbled away. Bashir made no attempt to catch up, instead allowing him to disappear into the surrounding forest. But he still chose to follow on the same winding course. The path circled around rocks and trees, and over tiny, dry brown hills. It was so thin in places that it might have been missed by a less observant man, and in others it looked like nothing more than the trails of foraging animals. After a minute or two spent weaving his way along the narrow, leaf-strewn track, he saw that the surroundings were finally starting to clear. The ground beneath his feet was becoming grainy - turning gradually to a fine, yellow dust.

But he had not expected to find a tall and whitewashed building on the other side.

More children watched from the entrance. There were four that he could see - all with varying degrees of the same grey hue across their skin. "Hello," he said again, scratching the back of his head. "I was wondering, could somebody tell me…?"

His voice trailed away, suddenly uncertain of exactly what he could have been meaning to ask.

One of the children stepped forward. Another boy, although a little younger than the first. "My name is Odal. May I take your bag?"

"Oh. Well… Thankyou." Bashir replied, caught slightly off guard by the unexpected formality.

"Odal!" shouted a sudden voice, clear and sharp enough to startle the boy. He spun around, frozen, and Bashir looked once more towards the entrance.

The woman in the doorway was tall and slender, with a thin, hourglass waist and tight-fitting jumpsuit that might have marked her as Bajoran Militia - except that it was the wrong colour and lacked the distinctive shoulder pads and long, stiff sleeves. Glancing nervously behind him, Odal walked to where she stood, and she placed a protective arm around his shoulders.

"This isn't some place for you to come and stare," she told Bashir in the same hard tone.

"I'm sure it isn't." His thoughts raced - how to put her at ease without appearing to condescend? "Although I didn't even think there would _be_ any buildings so close by."

The woman's eyes narrowed, assessing him thoughtfully, and Bashir noted that none of the other children were attempting to approach. _They trust her judgement_, he thought. _That's something, at least_.

"Well then," she said eventually. "If that's the case, who are you, and what _are_ you doing here?"

* * *

They were alone. One of the older children had been charged with the task of bringing the others inside, and now at least they could talk without being heard by too many anxious ears.

"You've heard of the plague at Mundara Village?"

"Course I have," she told him. "I also heard it's just a ploy - rumours fed to us by governments, to make us all afraid."

"Why would they do that?"

The woman cast him a stone cold glare. "Easy enough. Haven't _you_ heard, there's been talk of war?"

"It doesn't necessarily…"

She passed him by, so close that he could smell a touch of pollen upon her skin. "Sure? You keep enough people afraid, all at once - they'll be willing to accept just about anything."

"I really do - _strongly_ - suggest that you take this offer," said Bashir, in a firm enough voice to make her hesitate. "Trust me, the alternative is far worse."

"Listen, Mister… Doctor… Whatever your name is. This isn't the first time I've dealt with threats. We already got more than our share of problems, so whatever it is you're selling, I'm not interested."

"Of course I'm not…" Her visitor frowned. "Wait - just one moment. I'm not making any _threats_…"

"And you're not out to sell anything?"

"And I'm not out to sell anything. I swear it."

She paused, narrowing her eyes, and studied him closely before she finally leaned back with a deep sigh. "Then I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be rude."

"Not at all." His frown was strangely persistent.

"It's just with everything that's been happening…"

Bashir allowed a moment for her words to settle. But he'd already caught something in her voice - a hint of weariness, perhaps. Possibly even exhaustion. "What do you mean?" he asked her.

The woman's jaw tightened. Hard determination returned to her eyes. "Come with me."

The loose hair escaping from the woman's braid rocked in time to every agitated footstep, as she led her visitor up a dusty yellow-brown path and around to where part of the wall was already starting to wear away with age. The space on this side was narrower between the building and the forest, and Bashir had to dodge several protruding branches on the way. But the path soon widened, and he and his companion were able to shift away for a clearer view.

This was where they finally stopped. "Look." the Bajoran woman pointed.

It was fading slightly and streaked in places - perhaps from an unsuccessful attempt to scrub it from the wall. But Julian recognised the writing in an instant. He'd put in a concerted effort to brush up on his Bajoran ever since first making the decision to follow Keiko on one of her ecology expeditions. It had been a welcome distraction, he remembered - to find himself a purely intellectual challenge. Something to take his mind off recent events. And these words were so familiar, he could have painted them in his sleep.

_Cardassians. Dominion Scum_.


	2. Echo

Light filtered icily through the mist of early morning, struggling to lend some meagre warmth as it climbed, painfully slow, towards its apex in the sky. It was Bula's daily ritual, to watch the Sun rise over his fields, turning dewdrops to gleaming crystal and announcing the arrival of yet another new dawn. Forty years, it had been, since he had begun to perfect this routine, and he wasn't about to let a little rheumatism, age - or even the increasing congestion in his chest - keep him away.

"Got Federation round here now." He spat over the fence. "So. Who's next, is what I'm thinking."

Beside him, the younger man shook his head. Nalor had only recently picked up the habit of accompanying Bula on his morning vigil. The elderly farmer did not mind - just as long as keeping him company didn't include nosing around in his business. "He's not Federation."

"He's Hu-Man. That's close enough."

The field of katterpods was always a little fuzzy nowadays, especially when viewed through Bula's cataracts. But he gazed upon it anyway, as he had done for forty years, noting the slightly roughened texture where the light dipped silently into shadow. People were like katterpods, he reminded himself. You had to be careful how you tended them. Neglect them too long and you would miss the harvest. They would be rotten before you knew it. Watch too closely and you might forget that you were supposed to be nurturing them. And then they would grow shrivelled and dry - hardly worth harvesting at all.

"_You know you can get those removed," Bula's son had told him. The old farmer merely grunted loudly. He had not been in the mood to bother himself with a better reply and besides, it was not as if Johl would ever understand. He was still strong enough to work. He wasn't bumping into anything. And if the Prophets had seen fit to send him cataracts, who was he to argue?_

"Federation got no business here," he grumbled, deliberately ignoring Nalor's quietly weary sigh. Let the young man think what he liked. Bula Torem had lived through enough hard winters - and certainly seen enough - to be allowed the stubbornness of age. So, if other people around him were a field of katterpods, then he was a solid boulder. Weathered and wind-worn, beaten and carved by the years - but at the same time, hardened. Unmovable. Strong.

The boulders in his valley had stood through storms, unshaken even as water crept beneath their surface and the moss grew heavy across their shoulders. That was exactly as Bula had always been. He would endeavour to remain that way, not to be broken by the rain, or even by the most blustering gales.

* * *

__

"_I can help." The newcomer stood close by, outside a heavy, locked gate. He suppressed a shudder at the chill of moisture around him, so fine that it was more mist than rain. "I can formulate a vaccine, or possibly even a cure. But I need access to volunteers. Just let me in."_

"_No-one goes in there," the grey-clad Security man insisted with a deep chesty growl. Bashir sighed. It had been the same the last four times he'd attempted to gain entry. Stupid, to think that today would be any different._

"_But there's absolutely no evidence that it would even…"_

"No-one _goes in there."_

"_Wait." A second person approached from behind the middle aged guard. It was a woman this time. Tall and thin, dark-eyed, dark skinned, but with hair so blonde it was almost white. Bashir wondered at the unusual colouring, certain that he'd never seen it in any Bajoran women before. This new stranger paused, and studied his face. "Do I know you?"_

"_I don't think…"_

"_Yes!" she exclaimed. "I do. From that old station - weren't you some kind of doctor?"_

_Bashir sighed, averting his gaze. "It's complicated."_

"_What's complicated? You're either a doctor or you're not. So which is it?"_

"_Yes," said another new voice. "He is." Julian turned, surprised that he hadn't noticed anyone approach._

"_Keiko…"_

_She cast him a sharp-edged glare, in an attempt to silence further protests. But Bashir was not so easily silenced._

"_I don't have a licence any more, remember? If Starfleet Medical…"_

"_Forget Starfleet Medical," she interrupted. "They need you here. Now. And don't think I haven't noticed - you've been moping around the camp for days."_

_For a moment his own glare was just as intense. But she had already cut through his final logical objection. And her argument had come too close to what he'd already been thinking himself._

_The Federation had already pulled out of Mundara Village, against the protests of those already on the ground. They were preparing for something - although nobody was saying exactly what. And the Militia would not allow their own doctors to venture inside the quarantine area. But that didn't change the facts. There were people behind those walls, abandoned and isolated, waiting for assistance to come from somewhere - and most likely no longer expecting it. None of what he'd learnt at medical school had ever really left him._

_Nodding quietly, he turned back to the waiting guards. "I can help."_

* * *

"You don't have anything to fear from me," Julian insisted as the woman continued to bustle past.

"Fear?" Her laughter was abrupt. Unhappy. "Why would I? For all I know, you're just some wandering idiot who's lost all sense of direction. After all, nobody with any sense comes to _this_ place. Not if they can help it."

"You're here."

Her eyes narrowed. "And what makes you think _I've_ got any sense?"

Bashir found that he was smiling, almost as if to spite his will, a soft chuckle taking shape at the base of his throat. The tall Bajoran took only moments to catch on. Her eyes sparkled, mouth opening to a shy but genuine echo of his own barely voluntary amusement.

"At least tell me your name," Bashir said.

She paused, watching him with wide, dark eyes. "Jaliya." Her smile broadened. "Jaliya Tal."

He returned the expression. "And I'm Julian."

There was a tug on his sleeve, and he looked down to find the upturned face of a young girl. Her skin had a slightly more pinkish cast than some of the others', and the ridges around her eyes and along the side of her neck were less pronounced by far. But it was her hair that was most striking - the usual Cardassian black fringed with a touch of warm auburn.

"I got no teeth at the front - see?" she said, and grinned.

With a quizzical glance back up at Jaliya, Bashir nodded. "I do see. Has it been that way for long?"

The girl could not have been older than Molly O'Brien - he guessed about six. Maybe even five. She had crept through the front door - it seemed - and neither of them had even seen her until then. And just as she said, there was a broad gap at the front of her gums where two of her teeth were noticeably missing.

"They fell out," she announced loudly. "Day 'fore yesterday. But I didn't cry or nuffing."

"Did too," accused an older boy who watched from nearby. She glared at him and stuck out her tongue.

"Teyanha," the Bajoran woman scolded. But there was no real anger left behind her words. "I told you to wait inside. And leave the gentleman be - he's had a long journey. Isn't that right?"

"Not so long that I wouldn't enjoy the company." Bashir's unexpected honesty surprised even himself. "So - Teyanha, is it? What else can you tell me?"

* * *

The Cardassian was not about to give up so easily. Not after all he'd risked to get this far. He had lost his wife years ago - in the final months of the Occupation. He'd lost his commission in the very same week that the Dominion had appropriated his home. But then, at the moment when he was close to believing that there was nothing left in his life but despair, there had been that sudden discovery. A flicker of hope - even less than a flicker - but he held to it all the same.

He'd had no more than the smallest opportunity to sneak undetected from Cardassian space. Luckily, he still had friends who shared his opinion of the new regime - and who believed that others would come to share it too. So he'd crept away in the silence of a misty night, slunk through the city like a scavenging vole. He'd even managed to procure a ship from one of his former barrack-mates. It was nothing special - with barely space inside for him to stand fully upright - but at least it was sturdy enough to get him to this point.

He'd cheated all the way, lied to authorities on both worlds, bribed and begged and very nearly sold the clothes from his back. He'd done things he would not have considered six years ago. Certainly not for any other purpose but this.

A near-invisible beacon. A word in the Central Archives. The slimmest of chances that maybe - just _maybe_ - he had not entirely lost his son.

"His name was Aruvel."

"Aruvel…" The man at the local bar paused, turning the word slowly over on his tongue. It sounded foreign, hearing it said from the mouth of a Bajoran barkeep. But the boy had been little more than a baby when his father first came to this world. If he _was_ alive, it was doubtful that he would even remember the place of his birth.

_They would find somewhere new. Away from Bajor. Away from Cardassia. Where nobody cared who they were or what they had done to get there. And the boy would grow and flourish, and they would be a family again._

Whatever else, he could not allow himself to doubt the possibility that it could happen that way.

The bartender was quiet for a moment, and studied his grey-faced customer with his eyes just slightly narrowed. Somehow, hearing the boy's name spoken by another only caused the pain of his loss to return anew. And the eyes of the Cardassian's son had been almost exactly that same deep, granite brown.

_The baby had stared, fascinated by the sunbeams that flickered and played with the edges of the leaves above him. He pointed upwards with one chubby grey hand._

"_That's right," said the child's mother. "Pretty, isn't it?"_

_But his father was not watching the leaves. His eyes only ever had room for the faces of his wife and baby boy._

_He remembered tears, a tearing agony in his throat and chest, and the hot, painful stench of burning…_

The Cardassian sighed, toying with the glass in front of him, and the bartender paused when he saw the hurt come back to his eyes. "You think you can find him?"

"I have no choice," was the Cardassian's response. His host nodded with an expression of understanding.

_Surprising_, the visitor thought. _We used to be enemies_. He chuckled dryly as another memory drifted to the surface. "You know, Aruvel used to say such peculiar things. He barely even knew how to pronounce his own name, if you could believe it. When he was just two years old, the boy himself was the one who shortened it to…"

"What's _he_ doing here?" A long growl came from behind, slightly slurred. There was a sound of a barstool screeching across the floor.

"He's drinking, Amon. Same as everyone who comes this way." The bartender shot a warning glance at the speaker.

This new voice belonged to a thin-limbed man, with lank, greasy hair hanging in darkened clumps around his ears, and a face that looked like it had been chewed by vermin. "I don't drink with the likes of him!"

"And you're not." The answering voice was calm and level. "You're all the way over there - at the other side of the room. So why make such a fuss?"

"Either he goes, or I go."

The bartender snorted. "Not hard to guess which one of you won't be missed."

"It's all right." Raising his hand in what he hoped would be a placatory gesture, the Cardassian swallowed his last mouthful of ale, and hauled himself to his feet. "I was just about finished, anyway."

* * *

"Who are you?" demanded a middle-aged farmer. He stood alone in the field close by his house, using something hard-edged and metallic to create deep furrows in the soil. Muscles shifted beneath his arms, and a determinedly hard expression was set onto his face. "And what're you doing on my land?"

The unfamiliar farming implement did not _seem_ to be able to fire discharges, or even projectiles for that matter. But Julian was certain that it could break bones if swung with enough accumulating force.

A second man appeared from around the corner of the building, shuffling closer with his legs a little splayed as though saddle-sore. A grey knitted vest hung loosely over this stranger's shoulders. His mouth sunk into a hollow face, more distinctively lined than his companion's, and topped with a tangled carpet of wiry grey hair. But two resembled each other in every other way - like two halves of the same battered coin.

"What's that you got there?" the older man grumbled, barely acknowledging the presence of his son.

"It's a vaccine," Bashir told him. "Against the Mundara plague."

"Didn't think there _was_ any vaccine," the younger one scoffed.

"There wasn't," replied Bashir. A soft, exasperated sigh was threaded inextricably through his voice. _Déjà vu_, he thought. Why did so many of these visits always turn out the same? "There is now."

They continued to watch, eyes narrowed in suspicion. "I know you," said the elder one after a lengthy silence. "Federation type. Got no business in our valley, and even less on our farm. Gar'n outta here."

There was better luck to be had at the next place Bashir came to, but not by much.

"You're with that place up the hill," said a woman in a moss-green dress, with a tangle of feathery red hair. "I seen you there."

"Gotta watch them," her husband added. "Dangerous, having those kids round here."

Rifling through the contents of his bag, Julian pulled out a handful of small vials, each with a dose of the vaccine he'd discovered at Mundara.

"How dangerous could they be?" He found that he was unable to stop the question. "They're children."

"Little Cardassians grow up to be big Cardassians," commented the man. His son and daughter watched in silence at the table.

_Fourteen years old_, Bashir thought. The girl was could not have been more than fourteen - her brother still younger. At that age, Kira Nerys had already killed. She'd spent her childhood learning how to hate with cold ferocity - the kind that was needed to sneak into a person's home, to set down explosives, and tear a family to the ground until their bones lay scorched and broken in the rubble. He asked himself warily how many others were still learning the same harsh lesson.

* * *

__

_The Security officer keyed in a code with a series of soft accompanying chimes. He stepped back as the gate slid open, and indicated the uncovered space beyond. "Welcome to your tomb."_

_Bashir forced a smile which felt more like a sarcastic grimace._

"_Thank you." Hiding a quiet shudder, he stepped over the border and listened to the door shut tightly, inexorably, behind him. "…Very much."_

_He turned, discovering a need to confirm with his own eyes that he was indeed as trapped as he suddenly felt. And then he looked around him to study the waiting scene. His tomb._

_A new image met his eyes - dominated by dusty shades of brown and yellow, with possibly even a hint of grey at the edges. A courtyard. Buildings framed the border at either side, but no matter how far he levelled his searching gaze, he could find no sign of an open window - or even the soft glow of light from within. A cluster of dry grass, driven onward by the breeze, brushed silently against his feet and tumbled past until it came to settle against the high surrounding fence._

"_Who are you?"_

_Distracted by the somersaulting greenery, Bashir had failed to notice the appearance of a bone-thin, sickly man, whose staring round eyes were already sunken deep into his skull. The stranger approached from a distant exit, shoulders hunched as though in pain. His movements were as cautious as those of a white-haired centenarian, although with little likelihood that he had reached very far beyond thirty._

_And suddenly, Bashir found himself struggling to remember how to speak. "Well, I… er… came to - _help_?"_

_He hadn't intended the rising inflection at the end of his answer. When he spoke again, he was far more deliberate, working to cover every trace of uncertainty. "That is, I'm here to help you."_

"_Oh?" The stranger coughed sharply. Fluid bubbled inside his chest. "How?"_

"_Mahton," scolded a second new voice from nearby. This speaker was far older, but his steps were noticeably more assured than those of his companion. And he was dressed in the ankle length robes of a Bajoran cleric. Eyes narrow, lips pursed - tight and thoughtful - he studied the face of the man now standing before him. Bashir returned his gaze, but remained where he was and quietly allowed himself to be studied._

"_You are Human," the old man concluded._

_Bashir responded with an affirmative nod. "And I meant what I said. I _can_ help - I… er… I do know something about medicine. And since it doesn't seem that Humans can be affected..."_

"_Federation send you?" scoffed Mahton, his tone more than a little accusatory._

"_Actually, I volunteered."_

_This provoked a bitter laugh from the depths of the younger Bajoran's chest, which sounded more like a dog choking. "You volunteered? For _this_? Sorry, but we already have all the babbling idiots we need around here."_

"_Mahton."_

_The elderly stranger glared sternly. "I'd say we can use any offer of help we can get." His voice was soft, deep and clear. And then he smiled. "Do excuse my more sceptical colleague. My name is Taenor - Taenor Lahn. And this young man is Mahton."_

"_Although I doubt you'll have to remember that for very much longer," Mahton rasped. Whatever else he might have said was smothered by another fit of bubbling coughs._

* * *

Unable to scrub the offending words from the wall, Jaliya saw little choice but to paint over them instead. She secretly wished the task could have fallen to anyone rather than herself. She had never liked hooking herself to the narrow scaffolding, with only one hand free to steady herself against the nearest wall. Logically, of course, it was every bit as safe as being on the ground. Her chance of falling was close to zero, but even this reminder did nothing to lessen her instinctive unease.

And whoever had painted those words must have deliberately placed them too high to reach from the ground. Either they were taller than she had imagined anyone could ever be, or there had been strategy involved - planning and forethought. She wished she could make herself believe that it had been a simple whim. Clenching her teeth until they ground against each other, she cursed the vandals even more.

It did not help that this place already had a reputation. Before the Occupation, the isolated building had housed one of the wealthiest families in the valley. Much of their fortune had been accumulated over the span of the previous two centuries - from speculation and export, but supplemented for several generations by a sizable distillery of fine spring wine.

There had been rumours. People whispered that descendants of this same family had been feeding information to the Cardassians, although none of their accusations were ever entirely proven. The louder and more superstitious farmers had recently begun to say that the place was haunted - tainted with the ghosts of those who had been betrayed by a careless word and a surreptitious exchange of Latinum. There were those who believed that it should have been torn down years ago.

A sound in the distance cut short her wandering thoughts, like the crack of stone against stone - or possibly a snapping twig. She jerked towards it, frowning quietly, but shook her head. _It's getting to you_, she thought. _Probably some animal out searching for a meal_.

"Having the creepies," her brother had called this restless agitation of hers - even when he was still a child and she was barely half his size. Jaliya's frown deepened. Strange. She hadn't thought about Keros in such a long time.

_Too long_. The memory left her feeling vaguely guilty. He should not have been so easy to forget.

There it was again. Sharper and louder this time, although it may have been her suddenly hyper-tuned senses making it that way. "Are you sure that's just an animal?" she whispered, and set her paintbrush back down beside her feet.

She trembled a little on her way back to the ground, always so much better at climbing up than she was at getting down. Every time she set her feet down on the narrow beams, her arms and legs grew still more weak and numb. And years later, she still remembered the shouts of children as they called her from the roots of that thick, splay fingered tree.

_The others had been quick and nimble, easily managing to scramble down the trunk. But halfway up, little Tal was clinging, arms wrapped so tightly around one of the lower branches that she imagined it swallowing her whole. Perhaps the bark would grow around her until she could no longer be separated from its grasp. And people would tell stories about how - once upon a time - a pale and dark-eyed child had lived nearby._

_The Girl Who was Eaten by a Tree._

_But finally, there had been Keros. His strong arms prised her away, even as the skin of the old tree was cutting into her own. And when she discovered that her legs were just as useless on the ground, he lifted her in those strong, sure arms and carried her all the way back to camp. Later that night, he held her close, rocking her slowly, stroking her hair and shoulders. And she sobbed and shuddered until exhaustion overtook her and she was stolen away by a heavy, dreamless sleep._

"Hello?"

Even now, her rebellious limbs were not faring much better. But she had learnt with time to push through the fear. Steadying a little with each proceeding step, she forced herself down the uneven slope and past the forest border.

"Hello?" she called again. But there was nothing to see but the usual scattered layers of foliage, punctuated occasionally by slender, upright trees.

_You've had a rough day_, she reminded herself. _You were right the first time. If you heard anything, it was just the noise of some foraging animal_. With a sigh, she returned her attention to the building, already anticipating an awkward climb back up.

Something snapped, close behind her back. With a start, Jaliya Tal span around to face whatever had made the unexpected sound.

A shadow stepped into her line of sight, but there was no time to take its likeness. The trespasser raised his hand, too quickly for her to react. He was holding something hard and jagged.

An explosion of pain. Colours flashed. Then darkness.


	3. Apparition

"Don't move," said a voice.

Pain. There was pain at the side of her head, and a cold, deep ache stabbing between every one of her joints. But the voice was confident, soothing, and she held on to it like a beacon. Her mouth moved, lips dry, fighting to shape words that would not come.

"_Easy_, now. You've got a nasty concussion. But you should be fine as long as you try not to move. Do you think you can manage that?"

Jaliya's eyes opened to slits, but the hovering shapes above her were too dark to distinguish more than the most obvious details. She imagined a suggestion of a face, its edges fuzzy and indistinct. Whoever it was, he was keeping his voice low. But even the music of his tricorder was explosively loud in her ears, its lights like the flash of weapons fire with her head as the flame-scorched battlefield.

And then, a memory. She knew that voice. There'd been a Human doctor. He had introduced himself a little under a day ago. And she had been rude to him…

With some effort, she nodded, and winced as a flash of renewed pain stabbed like a laser into her left hand temple. There was so much she had to know, but connecting her thoughts to words was more than her exhausted mind could handle.

"How--?" she rasped. At least, that's what she thought she was saying. The Prophets only knew how she sounded to the doctor.

But he seemed to understand. "We're not exactly sure," he answered. "Vali found you, barely a minute ago."

_Vali_? "The children!" She started to struggle, but he held her down.

"They're all fine, and I told _you_ not to move."

"But…" Jaliya heard him close the tricorder. Rustling footsteps scrambled down the slope towards them, and suddenly there were people at her side. The man's voice changed in an instant, becoming hard, fluent, professional. And when he finished, Jaliya felt the touch of his hand - strong and warm upon her shoulder.

"Don't be afraid," he assured her, and once again he was very nearly whispering. "I'll take care of them, I promise."

_Why_? she wanted to ask. She frowned, which hurt her head still more. Her lips refused to move, and words, it seemed, had already retreated far beyond her reach.

* * *

Evening, the mood inside as subdued as the flame red light of dusk, which peered softly through the nearest window. Silence had fallen heavy like a blanket, and every face was quiet and grim. Vali was helping two other girls to write a letter for Jaliya on a slightly scuffed and faded padd. Light from a computer screen was softly blue on the faces of Lerin and Odal. And Brethen Rul - the same tall boy that Bashir had first seen standing at the wayside - watched him angrily from the most poorly lit of four dark corners.

"Will Jaliya be coming home very soon?"

Julian realised with a start that he'd been distracted by the boy's simmering, dark-eyed stare. He turned in the direction of Odal's query. "Ah…" he stammered a little. "Yes. She ought to be."

"Tonight?" the youngster asked.

"Tonight's a bit soon." Bashir's reply was fringed with soft amusement. "Perhaps some time tomorrow."

There was still a part of him that felt a little out of place, especially at the centre of all these staring faces. But he had made a promise. He was well practised in the art of pushing away doubts. And somebody had to stay close by. The afternoon's attack did not have the look of an isolated incident - in spite of what the local Security had claimed. It felt more like something about to begin.

"What's going to happen to her?" asked Lerin from across the room. A frightened edge had crept into his words.

Teyanha looked up, round blue eyes suddenly wide and plaintive. Her question came out as a barely audible breath. "Is she going to die?"

"That's stupid," Lerin scoffed.

"Is not." She rounded on him, her voice rising instantly from a whisper to an indignant wail.

"Is too," the boy retorted. "Don't be such a baby."

"Lerin." For a moment, Vali's admonishing voice was as sharp as Jaliya Tal's had been. But Teyanha's sparkling blue eyes still pleaded.

"Nobody is going to die." Bashir looked steadily into her face. They needed somebody to be certain, confident. Brave.

But when the child spoke again, her words were even softer, laced with the threat of anxious sobs.

"You promise?"

"I promise."

She directed her tearful gaze towards Vali, who smiled reassuringly. "No-one's going to die, Yana. Jaliya's in the hospital until she gets better. That's all."

Bashir wondered how many of them had caught the tension in Vali's quietly hopeful promise, or the way that her face paled just slightly, throat tightening a little more with every second that passed. She caught his gaze, and flinched. Although, of course, none of the others had seen the panic in her eyes.

* * *

_Every step he took only succeeded in leaving him even more haunted by the distance he was still obliged to go. But from what he could tell, the virus was slow to spread into new populations. Far more important therefore to be certain that those he did encounter were protected before it arrived. Although his task would be much easier, he was already close to cursing, if people around him would just co-operate._

_Irritable, distracted thoughts…_

…_Interrupted by a small grey shape half running, half stumbling from between the trees. Bashir caught her, one hand firmly around each of her upper arms._

"_Vali?" he said. He remembered this girl from the day before - the eldest, thirteen years old, with eyes like polished ebony._

"_Jaliya…" panted Vali. The skin of her face was barely a shade from white as she tensed, staggering a little, sobbing through a hoarse reply. "Help."_

_Then he saw blood on the teenager's clothing. "What is it, Vali? Are you hurt?"_

_The girl shook her head, swallowing hard. Those same distinctive eyes were wide, staring, terrified. She pointed back the way she had come. "Help Jaliya."_

_They sped together through the forest. Bashir's heart thundered all the way, muscles already tight from the sudden rush of adrenaline. Vali grabbed his hand after barely ten steps and started to tug him behind her, but the moment he saw Jaliya, he skirted past his younger companion and raced to the woman's side - skidding so quickly along the ground that he very nearly tore the skin from his knees._

_Blood branched down one side of her head, bright scarlet against the impossible pallor of her skin. Even her lips had turned to the colour of plaster. Quickly, instinctively, he unhooked the portable medkit from over one shoulder and flipped open his tricorder, barely even noticing how it had ended up in his hand._

Head injury, _it told him_. Moderate to severe. Some kind of blunt force trauma. _He jerked his eyes upwards, to where the Cardassian girl was watching a mere two steps away._

"_Do you know how to get an emergency communications channel?" he asked. Vali nodded dumbly._

"_Good," said Bashir. "Get everyone inside, and then I want you to do just that. Understand? Tell them everything you can that happened here."_

_She nodded again._

"_Say it."_

"_Get on the comm. Tell them everything."_

"_Good girl." Her voice had come out quiet and rushed. But at least he could be certain that she was still functioning well enough to follow his instructions._

* * *

_Two people came to take Jaliya away, heralded by the swirling light of a transporter beam. Both were young Bajoran men - both taller than usual, with dark, stony eyes. "Over here!" Bashir called to them. He was relieved to note their instantaneous response._

"_There's cranial trauma, concussion, possible skull fracture." He spoke rapidly to the medic beside him, shifting aside a little to allow the other to perform his own hurried scan. "I'd guess from a rock or something. One of the girls found her unconscious. It's difficult to say how long she was here, but it could be anything up to an hour."_

_The newcomer frowned at him. "And you are…?"_

"_That's too long a story, which neither of you have time to hear me tell," Bashir snapped, failing to suppress his irritation._

_The young woman's eyes were seeking his face, unfocused and fearful but lingering in the direction where he had been. Smiling tightly, he clasped her hand in both of his own, and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Don't be afraid." He kept his words as confident as he could make them. "The children are all quite safe, and you're going to be fine. I'll take care of them. I promise."_

_Rising to his feet, Julian stepped back and watched the lights dance and fade, taking all three figures with them. Certain that they had gone, he allowed himself three steps uphill, and turned to face the outer wall. Something had caught his eye - a flash of colour that he hadn't managed to study properly before that moment. He'd made no comment at the time, but knew beyond a doubt that Vali had seen it too._

_The paint still glistened where someone had half erased the first row of symbols. But just beside it, even slightly overlapping in places, the same message had appeared a second time - every bit as boldly as the first._

_Except that now the words were scrawled in red._

* * *

The night was punctuated by sounds from outside - branches scraping against a wall, the quiet song of some nocturnal bird, and others that he struggled to identify. With a heavy grey blanket wrapped around his shoulders, Bashir pulled a chair up to the entrance and kept a small hand phaser tucked close against his hip. It was not at all cold - the room was too thoroughly heated for that - but even this indoor warmth never felt like it was reaching him.

He'd adjusted the folds of a loose-fitting shirt carefully over the energy weapon, in the hope that it would stay concealed from the eyes of any curious children. There was some difficulty at first in distinguishing the difference between Lerin's nightly mumbles and what could have been signs of wakefulness. But as far as he could tell, all were sleeping soundly in the labyrinth of back rooms. _That's good_, he thought, rearranging himself at his place by the door, where his feet and legs were already numb from lack of movement.

As he continued to stare, the shadows showed him memories. _Teyanha relaxing, eyelids drooping, head resting heavily against his chest. And when the time had come, she'd barely stirred in his arms as - with Vali leading the way - he carried her to bed._

_Calmed by the news that Jaliya was not going to die after all, the youngest child had climbed into Bashir's lap, where she wriggled and squirmed until she'd managed to fit herself snugly against the groove of his belly. He'd watched, awkwardly at first and with no small measure of surprise. But Teyanha was already leaning backwards, strands of dark auburn hair brushing softly against his chin. "You got big hands," she told him sleepily, bringing them up for closer study._

_Three pale, hollow eyed children, staring from the darkness, mouths gaping as if to form words that never seemed to come…_

…_Mundara_.

It must have been the cold - combined with his constantly straight-backed vigil - that made him ache so with the arrival of morning. He coughed, rubbed away the dull pain centring in his chest, and hoped that the sun peering over the mountaintops could go some way to relieving the ever deepening chill.

A noise by the front wall, and suddenly he was entirely awake. Slipping a hand under the hem of his shirt, his fingers wrapped around the smooth, hard surface of his phaser. He rose on numb legs, allowing the blanket to tumble to the back of the chair. Last time he'd seen shadows move that way, they had come as heralds of danger. The shapes in the entrance gradually solidified into something tall, thin, and consciously purposeful. Humanoid.

"Don't shoot!" said a familiar voice.

The tension in Bashir's shoulders escaped just as suddenly. "You know I almost did, too!" he scolded the elderly vedek. "You'd do better not to sneak up on people like that."

Taenor stepped back and paused to study him. "You look terrible."

"And _you_ really know how to make a man feel better." Julian responded. But he suspected that there was some truth in his friend's blunt observation. He could only imagine what kind of ghostly apparition had greeted him at the entrance. _A ghost with a phaser, too_, he reflected wryly.

But the vedek was already looking past his friend. "Hello," he said. "And what's your name?"

Bashir glanced around, scratching his head. "Teyanha. What are you doing up?" The child padded over to join them, as pale and bleary-eyed as he still felt.

"I had a bad dream," she mumbled. "Can I stay with you?"

* * *

"May I be honest?" Vedek Taenor asked, as the girl curled into the nearest chair and closed her eyes.

Bashir turned from where he'd arranged his own blanket across Teyanha's shoulders. "Are you ever not?"

But there was still a hard edge to the old priest's gaze. Julian sighed, relenting. "That's a yes, by the way."

"I'm worried about you," said Taenor.

This got the young man's attention. "About me?"

"Did you sleep at all last night?"

"You know I didn't." He rubbed his face with one hand.

"Then why don't you…?"

"Then why don't _you_ stop pestering me with questions when you already know the answers?" Bashir was surprised to hear himself snap. He clenched his jaw, listening to each deep breath as he forced them steadily through his nostrils.

"Sorry," he told the elderly Bajoran, and genuinely meant it. "Perhaps you're right. Perhaps I should have had more sleep last night. But it just wasn't possible."

Taenor stepped forward. "Get some now," he suggested quietly.

* * *

_Before long, there were new arrivals coming regularly to the quarantine area - terrified, pale, huddled even in the arms of strangers because it was of far greater comfort to share their fears than it was to endure them alone._

"_They say there's going to be a war," one woman told him. Her voice was hushed, and laced with fear. "They say that Bajor will be first to fall when the Dominion attacks."_

"_Not if Captain Sisko can help it," Bashir asserted, and was surprised to discover that some small part of him still believed his own assertions._

"_The Emissary?" She relaxed a little at that, although the still-tight muscles around her eyes were clearly not from sickness._

"_That's right." Offering a smile that he hoped might at least come close to reassuring, Bashir took her hand and squeezed it lightly. He'd witnessed the ferocity of Sisko's dedication, and if anyone could safeguard this corner of their galaxy - this exotic place they'd all come to think of as their home - it had to be the captain._

_But from that night onward, his dreams had changed. There were still the same three children, eerie faces hollow and frightened, eyes lit from below by pinpoint lights. After a long time in silence, their surroundings would shift - bulging in places, folding back in others until they solidified into the rough grey walls of a hollow asteroid. On several nights, he would back away, stomach churning and tightening into knots. But there were other times when he could barely lift his feet from the ground, trapped by the trio's accusing stares._

_Three. Seven. One… A number, forcing its way up from the darkness. This time there was no runabout still in orbit. No chance to escape from the filth and hunger and the forbidding, watchful stares of the guards._

_And just before he woke - skin tingling, covered in sweat - he would sense a low voice, uncomfortably close to his ear. "Welcome home, Doctor."_

* * *

"And if you're all really good," the old man was saying to a captivated circle of young faces. "Julian might even tell you some Human stories."

Bashir laughed as he stumbled a little drowsily into the next room, and stretched his arms behind him. "I'm sure I could think of one or two."

Taenor nodded approvingly upon seeing his friend's good humour return. But their wordless exchange was quickly interrupted.

"May we visit Jaliya now?" inquired Odal, as clear and polite as ever.

"Vedek Taenor told us you would know the right time," Vali added a brief explanation. "But he said we would have to wait for you to wake."

"What _is_ the time?" Bashir asked the elderly cleric, whose smile grew still broader.

"Fourteen Hundred Hours," he replied. "Or thereabouts."

Julian took a moment to absorb the news, surprised that he had not sensed the passage of so much time. "Then I don't see that it should be any problem." He stifled a yawn, and hid it behind a smile of his own. "As long as the doctors don't object."

* * *

Standing mutely against an opposite wall, Bashir watched Teyanha as she curled in a tight ball against the young woman's chest. Jaliya already had one arm wrapped around the child's shoulders, even as she whispered softly in her ear. She glanced at each of the others in turn, so that even Rul - standing wordlessly in a far corner of the room - was never once excluded from their huddled gathering.

The only true outsiders, it seemed, were Taenor and Julian.

"Let's go," Bashir said, too quietly for anyone but the old man to hear. He led Taenor into the corridor, and sat on the nearest of a row of available chairs, locking his fingers tightly together and resting his hands upon his knees.

"They're quite fond of her, aren't they?" His face was momentarily hot with the flush of unexpected tears. But he pushed them away before anyone else could see. "Almost like some odd little family."

Was that what it was all about? A place for lonely souls to gather when their own families were too far away to reach?

_Legs tucked closely against his chest, the boy hadn't even noticed his neck begin to ache. But there had been the sky, stretching all the way across from one horizon to another. His attention was so completely trained upon it - on the glowing vista of starlight above him - that even the noises of his father settling at his side were not enough to distract him._

_Mother usually remained indoors, but Father was always happier to venture into the open. "Are we going up there?" the child asked him one clear Summer night, when the lights were brighter than they had ever seemed before. They were always brighter in Summer._

"_That's right, Jules," the dark eyed man had promised. And the boy grinned at the winking patterns of light and dark, and wondered if they could be waiting for him._

"Is something the matter?" Taenor gathered his robes and seated himself in the nearest empty space. His companion snickered quietly.

"Nothing worth telling."

It was difficult to know how successful Taenor was in suppressing his desire to comment further. But he was interrupted before he had a chance. "She wants to see you," Vali told Bashir, just a single metre away when she spoke.

He looked up. "Me?"

Vali nodded, quiet and earnest, watching him with her dark brown eyes.

_Lead the way_, Bashir thought, rising once more to his feet.

* * *

"Was everyone well behaved?" Jaliya asked.

Smiling warmly in Vali's direction, Bashir considered his answer. "I think you'd be proud if you knew how well," he responded.

Jaliya searched his face a moment as though for signs of falsehood. But her visitor's expression was as honest as he could make it.

"Really. It's true."

A querying smirk toyed with the corners of her mouth. But even in the soft laughter that followed, there was still trepidation, as though it hurt her to show too much mirth.

"That's good." Her dark eyes were just as suddenly serious, looking deep into his own. "And could you pass on my thanks to your friend as well? For what you both did for us last night. Thank you."

"That shouldn't be a problem."

With a grunt of effort, she shifted a little on the mattress, but did not appear to be any more comfortable. "There _was_ one more thing," she continued. "I've told the children that in the meantime, they're to do just as you say. Which includes those vaccinations you were talking about. You don't mind, do you? I mean, it's not an obligation… I should be out of here by evening."

"Why should I mind?" Strange, though, how close he'd come to forgetting his original reason for coming to Kendra Province. "So. This evening, is it?"

"That's what I was told."

Bashir raised his eyebrows sceptically. He'd known too many people like her.

"Oh, all right." Jaliya sighed as though beaten by his unwavering gaze. "They say I can get out of here _if_ I behave myself, and stay in bed for the remainder of the day."

"Which, let me guess, is the last thing you want to do?"

"What are you, a telepath now?"

It was his turn to show a degree of amusement. "Just experienced."

"Now, if you will excuse me…" the young woman whispered. A good humoured scowl was clear in her eyes, even as they blinked themselves shut.

Stepping a little closer, Bashir brushed a hand momentarily against hers, noting the calm of her face, her lingering smile, the way her hair was spread like an extra blanket over the pillow. "Rest well." He patted Teyanha on the shoulder. She grumbled a little, but allowed herself to be shifted from Jaliya's side, and Julian finally shepherded the odd little group back through the door.

* * *

"Most of the other kids have like this," Teyanha told him later that day, indicating the series of parallel grooves spread across the bridge of her nose. "But Rul and Lerin don't a-cause they're not all mixed up like me."

"Well for what it's worth." Bashir smiled. "I think you have a very cute nose. Now, hold still."

Teyanha squirmed as he pressed the vaccine into her neck. "That tickles."

"I know it does, but you have to hold still."

"It's all cold!" She pointed to his open case. "What's that?"

"It's a tricorder."

"What's it do?"

"Measures things."

"Can I see?"

Still smiling, he took it out and opened it to show her. Lights flashed across its surface, emitting a soft, tuneful stream of beeps and trills.

"Pretty," said Teyanha. She wriggled in close for a better view, and indicated the display. "What's that mean?"

"_That_," said Bashir. "Is to tell me how many people are in the room."

"But you already know how many people are in the room."

"I do." He laughed. "That's true. But if I couldn't see anyone…"

"What's that?" She pointed again.

"That's a picture of what you look like inside."

"_Eew_!" Her nose wrinkled even further in a childish blend of disgust and delight, ridges folding into each other like the pleats on a fan.

"Want to see more?"

Eyes sparkling eagerly, Teyanha nodded.

* * *

Rul's turn.

First the vaccine, and then a brief, routine scan. The dark eyed boy watched in silence as Bashir frowned at his tricorder display. Just as he'd suspected, Rul's leg had been broken, but so long ago that the bones were already tightly pressed into each other. At the time, it would have been easy to repair, but now… There were thoughts of surgery, of having to re-fracture what had already healed. Many days - maybe weeks - before the boy would be able to put his full weight on it again.

Bashir looked up. "What happened to your leg?" he asked.

Rul said nothing. But his eyes flashed. Cold, shadowy anger turned momentarily to rage, which vanished so quickly it might almost have been a dream.


	4. Reflections

Jaliya's steps were a little unsteady as she walked back to the front door, with Odal on one side carrying her bag, and a pair of ten year old twins shadowing her on the other.

Putting an arm around the shoulders of the nearest girl, she whispered in her ear. The child grinned, and nodded enthusiastically, brushing past the alien doctor in her haste to be first inside.

Their visitor greeted her at the entrance. His mouth smiled, but there was a storm behind his eyes, reminding Jaliya of the clouds that gathered occasionally in the sky above her childhood hometown. These would swirl and darken to shades of angry grey, until she could feel the static on her skin - and they would release flashes of electric light which left textured afterimages at the back of her eyes.

The portent of thunder remained behind his smile, even as he approached. "How do you feel?"

"Still hurts a bit," Jaliya confessed, wincing as she lowered herself into a nearby chair.

He nodded. "I imagine it will for a little while yet. But that won't last forever."

It didn't take long for the drawn out silence to be more than she could stand. "What?" she demanded, finally.

Bashir frowned as though the question had startled him. "Sorry?"

"I know there's something you're wanting to say," Jaliya challenged him. "I can see it in your eyes. So why not just come right out and say it?"

"It's nothing," Bashir replied with a shake of his head. But Jaliya felt her own expression harden still further.

"Tell me."

He studied her face, but when she gave no sign of being about to relent, he released a troubled sigh. "Rul…"

"What about him?" Now she was frowning too, suddenly wary, muscles tense as though preparing for escape.

"He doesn't have to be like he is," the young man whispered. Even Jaliya had to strain to hear him. "With proper treatment…"

"Proper treatment?" And now her own voice rose with every word. "Where are any of us ever going to find 'proper treatment', when it's all I can do to…?"

She closed her eyes for a moment, forcing herself to take a long, calming breath. But when she spoke again, her teeth were still clenched. "Follow me."

"Is Julian in trouble?" they heard Lerin whisper, not without a measure of quiet delight.

"You should really…" Bashir began to speak, but the tall woman wasn't in any mood to listen.

"Let me tell you something," she hissed once she'd led their visitor around the side of the building. "I doubt that you could get Rul to agree, even if there was a chance he could ever get any help. He's had his fill of hospitals, and none of the places he's been to ever really helped him. It's hard enough as it is just to keep this place running, but I've barely met a single person who would shed a tear if every one of these children ended up right back where they began. If you knew how many times I've…"

She could feel her voice rising again, and struggled to regain control. "Teyanha's mother was raped by a Cardassian soldier and left for dead at the bank of the river. I'll tell you now, he left behind much more than just a daughter. That's what people see when they look at this place. You understand? Reminders. I've been struggling for three whole years just to find enough to keep the walls from falling down. So whatever you do, don't you _dare_ judge us here."

Mouth open, Bashir stammered through a jumble of words he was not afforded a chance to find. One of the children inside let out an abrupt and startled cry, the heavy silence broken by the sound of something loud and solid colliding with the front wall of the Centre.

"It's all right," said Jaliya, all anger forgotten in her haste to reassure those still inside.

Instead of following her through the entrance, Bashir turned away, and half-stumbled down the hill. "Hey!" he shouted, but there was nothing left of their tormentors but the laughter of retreating boys.

* * *

There were solid clouds over Bula's katterpod fields that morning, fringed with shades of pink and yellow and everything in between. They bore no definite sign of rain, even with the drifting shadows they cast upon the ground. But the same bone-deep chill of sunrise dug deep into the chests of the watching men.

Nalor fretted, although he spared no more than an occasional sideways glance at his elderly companion. It was two days now since Bula Torem's wet, rumbling cough had begun to worsen - to rise like a flood from the depths of his lungs. Grumbling like the bubbles on a restless thermal mud pool, the old man spat on the tangled grass at his feet.

"One thing's for sure." His words were suddenly vicious. "_I'm_ not about to be part of any Federation experimentations - new fangled chemicals and all. I may be old but I'm no fool."

_Federation experiment_? So _that_ was what the latest rumours were saying.

"This isn't some vast conspiracy," Nalor told him, wondering how it was that so many otherwise good, sane men could be this stubborn.

"Say that when the aliens come for you," persisted the elder Bula.

Nalor raised an eyebrow. "He already has," he assured his companion. "There's nothing to be scared of."

"Who said I was scared?"

_This is not the time to comment_, thought Nalor. "It was really quite straightforward, Bula," he chose his words carefully. "Over in a second. Didn't hurt at all."

"_Hmphf_," the old man grunted. He pushed himself away from the gate, and waddled back towards his house.

* * *

"Aruvel Elmek," the Cardassian said. "That's right."

The woman sidled towards the back of the room without taking her eyes from her unusual customer. She continued to watch him coldly, even as she keyed the boy's name into her console. There was a pause as she leaned forward to peer at the results. Gorol Elmek felt his throat clench still tighter.

"We don't have anyone of that name on record," she told him.

"Is there no way to double check? Perhaps a different spelling… Or maybe if I wrote it down for you…"

"We don't have anyone of that name on record. _Sir_." Her reply was terse, with an edge of finality.

The Cardassian's heart was a leaden weight, the threat of hopelessness rising once more as if to swallow him whole. _They've probably changed it, anyway_. Doing his best to ignore the ice in her stare, he nodded wearily.

"Thank you for your time," he said, although he wished he could simply hurry away without another word.

It was late, the sky darkening all around him, and the surrounding scenery already overlaid with an increasing cast of blue. Even the cold inside the records office had been enough to make him shudder. The outdoor air was even worse. As he left the building, Elmek anticipated the welcome return to his own accommodation. Perhaps he would even indulge himself to a glass or two of kanar - something to stiffen his frozen nerves.

A shadow crossed his path. Elmek noted the shape of a tall and slender Bajoran man. There were others as well, approaching from slightly further away. "Excuse me," he muttered, and sidestepped past.

Wherever he went, he decided at that moment, it would have to be much warmer than this place. But before he even thought about leaving, he had already resolved, his son would have to be with him.

_Aruvel._

The name gave him hope. It fuelled his search, even when he knew for certain that he could never take his boy back to Cardassia Prime. Finding the boy, seeing him grow, making up for a multitude of irretrievable years. That would be enough.

The wind brushed coldly across his skin, almost as if to taunt him with reminders. He would never feel the heat of a Cardassian summer ever again. But enough of this standing around and dreaming, he thought with a shudder. The night had only just begun. It wasn't about to get any warmer.

Slowing a little, Elmek turned around. The strangers' footsteps had continued behind him, closer now than they had been last time he stopped. _If it's directions you're after_, he was preparing himself to say, _Then I'm sorry. I'm just as much a stranger to this place as anyone here_.

Dull pain surged outwards from the base of his stomach, and again at his jaw. Something hard slammed into the back of his neck. He could feel skin breaking, bones disconnecting, and was doubled over before he could react.

There were two of them, possibly three… It was difficult to tell. But he'd been through too many beatings in his life to doubt that here was yet another. One sharp boot connected with his ribs, a second with his kidneys, and yet another landed hard against his stomach - leaving him retching and gasping for air. And he forced the same thought into his head that he'd told himself every time. _It will end. It _will.

* * *

_Details varied with each individual case, but the basic pathology was essentially nearly always the same. It started with a pain in the chest, so slight at first that it would often be dismissed as one of life's regular daily aches. Next would come an increasingly stubborn cough, as the lungs fought to dislodge a persistently sticky coating of mucus. After that there would be high fever, often accompanied by complaints of painful, unshakable chills. Until finally, the patient's struggling lungs could no longer take in air, or the pressure of dehydration, thickening blood and constant extremes of hot and cold became too much for their exhausted bodies to bear._

_The earliest volunteers had long since established that none of the standard anti-viral medications had any noticeable effect. And with every hour that passed him by, Julian found himself struggling against the same mounting despair that he imagined would have claimed them all. _Every disease has a cure_, he reminded himself, again and again. _And every cure is really just waiting to be found_. It became his mantra - his lifeline. Now, added a quieter, unwelcome but inescapable thought. If only it were possible to _force_ himself to believe it._

"_Where did you learn to do all of that?" demanded Mahton._

_Bashir looked up, alarmed to discover that his chest was suddenly tight. There was friction in the other man's stare, which cut through him like shattered glass. "It's a long story," he said._

_But instead of leaving, Mahton seated himself in the closest of three chairs and pulled the stiff grey blanket still tighter around his shoulders. "I have time."_

_The dull pain in Julian's chest was quick to reach his throat. A cluster of magnified viruses floated aimlessly from end to end of the computer screen. But he found that his own gaze was just as aimless._

"_You can do an awful lot of things," the Bajoran continued, and paused to cough away some of the phlegm at the back of his mouth. "For someone who just 'knows a bit about medicine'."_

_Bashir considered what he ought to do if Mahton continued his persistent refusals to return to bed. The man needed rest. His eyes were half closed, darkly shaded as if someone had smeared powdered charcoal on the skin beneath. He was already starting to shiver, and light reflected from a shallow trickle of sweat that branched all the way down his left hand temple._

_A mild sedative could work, for a few minutes - possibly even an hour. But anything stronger was far too likely to impede the efforts of his already struggling lungs. "You're running a high fever, Mahton," Bashir told him. "You should…"_

"_What? Time for bed?" The younger man took a deep, rasping breath. "If I were to guess, I'd say you've done this kind of thing before. So perhaps you could explain what real difference it would make if I choose not to go?"_

* * *

Elmek held a hand up to his nose, noting the place where it throbbed most painfully. His nostrils and upper lip were already sticky and wet, and his jacket sleeve came away stained dark with blood. The rest of his face was just as swollen, one eye already starting to close. But if he focused so hard that the pain was close to unbearable, he could just about make out the distinctively sharp angle of a roof. His accommodation was within his sight. All he had to do was make it as far as the other side of the street.

The corridor was deserted as he stumbled inside. Every one of his steps was jagged and unsteady, one hand bracing himself against the wall. End of the passage. That was where his room would be, with a bed at the farthest corner. _A bed… _Elmek longed with all the energy he could spare, just to stretch himself upon it and close his eyes.

Rest. Let the pain subside. He would smart for it in the morning, but he was already feeling dizzy. Off balance, abused. The bed was as far as he could work up the energy to go.

* * *

Even now, when anybody asked him how he remembered so much, so quickly, Julian Bashir would laugh, and shrug, and do the best he could to hide the squirming, queasy discomfort pushing itself upwards from the pit of his stomach.

Captain Sisko had already petitioned Starfleet several times on his behalf, and Bashir was far from certain why he hadn't fought them a little harder himself. But they'd been entirely deaf to the captain's continued protests. His former CMO was too erratic, they said, dangerous to himself and dangerous to others. In short, not _normal_. And too much had happened for the captain to find effective arguments against their accusations. Thoughts of it still made his shoulders heavy, as though suddenly bearing the weight of mountains. _Perhaps_… he thought with a sigh. Perhaps _that_ was why he wasn't fighting harder.

For the moment at least, news still reached him from the station that was once his home. People sent him stories about the regular opening of the wormhole - of how they would watch it expand like a flower opening, and eject a small armada of Dominion warships as if it was expelling spores onto the wind. Sometimes he would look up at the night-time stars, and imagine that he could even glimpse it with his naked eye. But even with better than twenty-twenty vision, he knew it was ridiculous to expect to see that far.

Frowning, agitated, he scratched his head and realised that he had been reading Chief O'Brien's words but without really noticing what any of them meant - staring at his letter long enough for the padd to turn slightly warm against his palms. Sighing, he shifted his weight and blinked back a slight ache at the back of his eyes. Time to focus. He'd already taken longer than he probably should have done.

_I bet you know already how I've never been one for writing. But I figured this time I might as well, though I reckon you could drop us a line yourself once in a while. Or are you too busy even to talk to your friends any more these days?_

_Incidentally, a reminder. You still owe me another game of racquetball. Don't dare count on any of us forgetting. Quark's already got a betting pool going, so you'd better find the time to get back up here before I have to tell him that you forfeit._

_Everyone sends their best, missing you and all that. Funny when I think of it, but there are still times when I stagger into the Infirmary after one of those kayaking sessions and half expect to find you there. But if you tell anyone I said that, I'll fly down to the surface myself and strangle you. Not that it matters much. With all that's going on around here, there's barely ever time for kayaking, anyway._

"What are you reading?"

Bashir looked up, momentarily startled, and Jaliya Tal grinned as she settled beside him.

"It's a letter," he stammered a little. "From a friend. I just thought I'd take a chance to catch up."

At this, Jaliya's smile faded. "Oh. I didn't mean to… Shall I leave?"

"No, stay," came the reply. "I was just about finished with it, anyhow." Resting the padd against his lap, Bashir coughed slightly against a persistent tickle at the back of his throat.

"You Federation types are too used to sleeping on comfortable beds," his companion teased. Still a little voiceless, the only answer he gave her was a deliberately acerbic grin.

_Comfortable_ was not how Julian would have described the Cardassian designed quarters that had been his lot for the past five years. But he'd managed to accustom himself well enough. It had even started as a delightful adventure. He remembered being slightly thrilled to find his Infirmary half in ruins, strewn with scattered metallic debris and barely illuminated by constantly sputtering lights.

"Although," Jaliya commented, picking up a still-green, knobbled twig and carving shallow furrows in the ground beside her feet. "I suppose we'll all be Federation types soon enough."

Bashir laughed to see her expression. "Is it _that_ bad?"

"I don't know." And now she was staring, dark eyes searching his face. "Is it?"

Her gaze was probing, seeming to stab right through him until he felt the shade of dull pain behind his eyes. "It's true." And now his stomach churned as though in the process of a gradual somersault. "If Bajor does join the Federation, I'll most likely have to find somewhere else to go."

"Why?" she finally asked him. She'd said nothing before that moment, but he could tell that she'd been wondering.

Bashir sighed, toying with the letter still in his hands. "Let's just say it's complicated."

"Complicated…" Jaliya nodded, and slipped into yet another contemplative silence.

"I was wondering." She wrapped her hands loosely around her knees, chewing thoughtfully on her bottom lip. "Would you and your friend consider staying with us tonight?"

Bashir was glad for the change in subject, although uncertain of exactly how to respond. Usually, he just set up a smallish tent beside the nearest available tree. It wasn't difficult to reassemble each night. He'd been doing the same so many times over that it had become as natural to him as breathing. "I'm afraid Vedek Taenor left an hour ago," he told her.

"Just you, then," said Jaliya. "We don't get many visitors around here, and the children all say such good things about you."

"Even Rul?"

"I'll admit he takes some getting used to," she said with a smile. "But yes, even Rul. Call it an apology, if you like, for having treated you so badly."

"There's no need for apologies…" Bashir began.

"Then call it a welcome," his companion persisted, rising slowly to her feet. "I'll wager you haven't had many of those since you came."

He chuckled. "Not a lot. Very well, I accept your gracious invitation, Jaliya Tal."

* * *

_They'd buried Mahton on the previous day, along with four others - one barely half the size of a full grown adult. As usual, Taenor stood by the graveside with his hands stretched outwards, head bowed, eyes tightly closed. But when Bashir approached him this time, the pain in the old man's face was raw, and potent. Perhaps he should have said something, his conscience whispered. But another part of him had sensed that it was not the time for words, and he opted instead to slip away unnoticed._

_Names. They all had names, and he had a prodigious ability to remember. It was far too important that somebody not let go. He held on to their images, long into the small hours of the night. They were more than a collection of shrouded, grub-like, mud-tinged corpses, arranged in rows beneath the ground. More than the cold, anonymous phantoms of his dreams._

_And later, when this part of their story was over, and people asked him what had happened, he was determined. He would not fail to remember their names._

"_You need to sleep."_

"_Can't sleep." He hunched over the research equipment and tugged at the blanket still draped around his shoulders. Eyes aching, their lids swollen and heavy, last time he glimpsed his own reflection he'd been vaguely frightened by the hollow face staring wanly from the other side. "I've almost got it."_

_Taenor blocked his progress with a hand around his wrist. "You need to sleep," he said again. "Your work is not likely to vanish by the morning. You need to be well."_

"_We had to bury Kalo today," Bashir whispered. "He was only fifteen. And yesterday, that child… Don't tell me we couldn't have done anything for her. What if somebody dies in the night, because there was no-one left awake to help them stay alive?"_

"_Then the Prophets will have called to them, and it will have been their time."_

_Barely remembering to close his own mouth, Bashir looked up so quickly that he felt the slightest whiplash at the back of his neck. He struggled to hide an expression of horror. But Taenor's eyes were calm and commanding._

"_Good," he said. "Now that I have your attention. You are going to sleep."_

"_I can't."_

"_Yes you can." As if to double his insistence, Taenor began to turn off the instruments. But it did not escape his notice that Bashir was attempting to turn them back on again. He shuffled forward to stand in the way._

"_You're no good to anyone in that state," he scolded. "You've been doing nothing but stare at that machine for the past half hour, or did you think I wasn't noticing? If you're so keen to take the weight of the universe on your back, at least be sure that you have the energy to lift it. What if someone dies tomorrow because neither of us had the foresight to take care of ourselves?"_

* * *

His eyes snapped open, arms and legs jerking upward as though with an unexpected shock. _Just a dream, Julian. A dream - that's all_. But no - there had been something else. Something far more real. And now there were voices coming from the adjacent rooms. Loud, childish, frantic…

Jaliya was quick to join him in the corridor as they ran together towards the source of the noise. The scene before them was all confusion. Even Vali's normally calm eyes were wide with fear as she pointed mutely to the window, where sharp, white cracks had spread outwards in a spider-web pattern from the very centre of the pane. Powered by a sudden burst of energy, Bashir dashed outside. That kind of reinforced perma-glass was never an easy thing to break.

He held back a cold shudder, which had little to do with the chill of early morning. This time, the writing above the front door spoke of a brazen culprit, entirely unafraid, with little concern for any likely results. Following close behind him, Jaliya peered warily into the patchwork of moonlit shadows.

Bashir caught her arm, and she tensed as she turned to face him. He pointed towards the building.

"_Traitors_," whispered Jaliya, finally giving voice to the still wet symbols on the wall. Then she noticed the crowd of wide-eyed children watching from the entrance.

"Get back to bed," she scolded them. "Go on - all of you."

As she shooed them inside, Julian remained where he was, still glancing around him at the shady nightscape. "It wasn't kids this time," he muttered. One thing was certain - this time, somebody had been very serious.


	5. Shades

Teyanha stood at the edge of the trees, watching the five older girls as they ran in ever widening circles and occasionally reached forward in an attempt to tackle their fleeing, squealing friends. Quietly curious, standing with her toes pointing slightly inwards, the girl on the sidelines brought Ni-ni closer to her chest. Her doll gazed straight ahead with dark, painted eyes, limbs swaying a little as if in an effort to join the game.

She waited until the other children had stopped, all their faces now turned to her, before she stepped forward and offered them a timid smile. "Hi."

The tallest in their little group lifted herself from where she'd landed after a fast-moving cartwheel. They moved closer - three at the front, two a little more slowly until they had surrounded the quietly watching child. "Who're you?" one asked.

"Teyanha," she told them, staring upwards. One of the speaker's companions poked her roughly on the shoulder. It hurt, and her smile fell into a subtle grimace of anxiety.

"From that place on the hill?"

"Is she real?" asked a second girl.

Teyanha scowled. _Course I'm real_.

"What's that on her face?" her friend exclaimed, pointing to the subtle raised oblong that was set between the young girl's brows.

The tallest of them jabbed at it with one sharp finger, and Teyanha felt the rising threat of tears. "Does it come off?"

"Don't know."

"She looks funny."

One of them pushed her from behind, and she staggered a little. "_Don't_!" Her attempt at a protest was more like a strangled sob.

"Don't what?" the oldest one taunted, and pushed again - harder this time. "This?"

Sharp pain stabbed through Teyanha's knees, the laughter of the other children echoing in her ears as they sped away down the slope. Pulling her legs towards her, she looked down with tearful eyes to where streaks of red now mingled with the black of hardening mud. Her doll lay face upward on the soggiest patch of ground, close enough for her to reach, but she hesitated before finally lifting Ni-ni from the dirt.

* * *

The bag was propped at one end of his pillow, neatly closed as though in anticipation of a journey to come. But Julian stepped back instead, studying it long enough to take in every curve and shadow along its slightly rumpled edge. _Why_? he wondered. Feeling restless, already plagued by images of the places he still had left to go, he shifted his gaze from his tidily packed luggage and out of the open window.

He'd achieved as much as he was ever likely to in this particular valley. There was little more he could do for people who so stubbornly refused his help. _Besides_, he told himself. _None of these people ever asked you to remain_. It must have been time to move on, surely. But if his own thoughts at that moment were so believable, then why did they seem so out of place - as if he'd consciously forced them to play inside his head. Why had he not yet hoisted the bag upon his shoulder?

_Don't be an idiot_, he came close to growling aloud. _You're no Constable Odo_. And even Jaliya was only ever insisting that she had no recollection of anything that had happened. _She does remember, though_. He could tell. But without her voice to push for an investigation, what could the local Security ever do? What _had_ they done?

"_An isolated incident," one had told him, and his skin still burned with impatient anger. Drawing attention to the outright stupidity of the man would yield few results and make him no friends, but even with the passing of time, he wondered if he would not have still felt better for it. "Keep a watchful eye, and we will do the same. But whoever it was this time around, I don't think they'll be back."_

"_What?" Bashir had dogged their heels, sheer frustration lending energy to his stride. "You're not even going to run a scan? There could be DNA traces. Something left behind…"_

_And it hardly took a genetically enhanced intellect - he added in secret - to see that the attack on Jaliya had been no case of random, isolated violence._

"_We're in the middle of a _forest_, Sir." The shortest of the three Security officers had dropped her voice to a low growl - tight, as though it was the only thing holding her patience together. "I'd be willing to bet this place is full of DNA traces. Now, I suggest you go back to… whatever it was you were doing. We have your statement. I'll let you know if there's anything else we need."_

In other words, "Don't call us. We won't call you."

_Some people say that if a man heeds his senses, he can smell the approach of a storm from over a kilometre away_. There _was_ a journey beckoning - a still unanswered call; a task hardly even begun. But his waiting luggage remained upon the bed. Still bristling with poorly contained frustration, Julian turned and strode outside. He would come back to it again. But later.

* * *

Just as Gorol Elmek had predicted, his attempt at sleep brought nothing but pain, which did not lessen with the coming morning. There were times when he hated being so correct. Groaning from the depths of his throat, the Cardassian tensed the muscles around his jaw and eyes - which led to instant regret as what had started as a constant, throbbing ache at one side of his mouth turned quickly to a flash of dull agony.

The same was true of the tight, bruised flesh at the side of his torso. _You've recovered from worse_, _Elmek_. Lying on his back, watching the darkness creep across the room, he willed his chest to rise and fall beyond the pain. But even this deliberate reminder did nothing to lessen the flood of misery that swelled and grew with every beat of his heart.

Time and wakefulness were bringing something else to his awareness. Opening his leaden eyes, he was glad to find that the light was still dim. _And yet_, he thought. Agonising as it was, much as it kept him from finding the dark relief of sleep, it had not been his own discomfort that finally roused him.

Holding back another tight grimace, Elmek eased himself upright until he had managed to sit on the edge of the bed. He remained irritably certain that the persistent chime at his door was unlikely to cease on its own. His head protested, pain drilling into its very centre, and he hadn't noticed until attempting to speak, just how much his aching mouth had dried.

His first words failed to emerge beyond a barely audible, croaking breath. He flexed cautiously, closed his eyes against another dizzy wave, and coughed. "Come in," he finally managed to wheeze.

The door slid open to reveal the shadow of a woman, lit from behind, the details of her face still dark and obscure. She was shorter than most of the locals he had seen, a little stocky, and wrapped in a loose fitting cloth that hid much of her remaining female shape. "Gorol Elmek?" she asked him timidly.

He nodded with some trepidation, frowned, and let out a brief, inaudible grunt of pain. "How did you know?"

"You are the only Cardassian from here to Tempasa. It was not difficult to find you."

"Point taken."

Noticing the strain in Elmek's voice as it struggled through clenched teeth, the stranger ran to his side. "Are you hurt?"

"It's how I know I'm still alive," he attempted to joke, flinching away from her hand where it carefully searched his ribs.

"Wait a moment." The woman's tone was grim. She stood and dashed into the next room. The Cardassian watched her disappear, but his head still throbbed too badly to allow him to sort through the multitude of questions that rose into his thoughts.

His visitor returned with a small medical case, which she clicked open to reveal a collection of the most basic instruments that he had seen since the days of the Occupation. "Well," she muttered, pulling out what looked like a miniature regenerator of some sort. "Looks like it'll have to do. We got by with less in the Underground after all."

Elmek was not sure how much of the soft, half-whispering caution in her voice was natural, and how much was deliberate, but he appreciated the consideration. As she ran a thin light steadily over his bruises, he found that their ache was fading, and wondered at how lucky he was to have come across a stranger with such a certain knowledge of the healer's art.

But there was no chance to comment. She was telling him things, gradually drawing his attention away from the pain of last night's beating. "My name is Orlana," she continued. "I work at the records office. Nothing special, really - just sometimes I get asked to help with filing, and the occasional bit of data retrieval. But I noticed when you came in yesterday, there was something about that request you made… Something about the dates. It got me thinking, you see. There. How does that feel?"

_How_ does _it feel_? Elmek brought a hand up to his jaw, opening and closing it with some care. He tentatively rolled one shoulder and pressed his other hand against his ribs.

"Better," he decided.

"Good." Orlana set the kit to one side, and stopped to pull something from a small bag strapped around her waist. A padd. She offered it to Elmek.

His chest was tight, heart suddenly racing. _Please. Oh, _please - _let this be what I think it is_.

"What is it?" He hardly dared to ask. Once the question was out, it could not be taken back. And if his suspicions should turn out to be wrong…

"Information," the woman confirmed, and the Cardassian had to remind himself to breathe. "It's a record of your son."

* * *

_DNA_, thought Bashir, clasping the trunk of a nearby tree as he trudged around it and gazed into the distant shadows. _That's what you're looking for_.

The forest was slightly moist where rain had fallen on the previous night. Dark, dead leaves clung to his boots from almost the moment he arrived. He'd been involved in criminal investigations before, and it was the first thing Odo and the captain always asked him to find. Few crimes were ever committed without leaving some trace of the culprit behind, and even those that seemed impossible to interpret - at first - would all eventually give up some result.

He tensed, listening. Wondering what it was he'd just heard, or even if it had been anything at all…

If he failed to gather any reliable genetic evidence, he could still set his scanner to target blood trails, possibly even locate the weapon that had been used. And when he did, there might even be some remaining mark of the attacker upon it. "Which is the kind of thing Security should have thought of," he muttered - not without some degree of irritation.

Still watching the display, Bashir paused, and frowned. There _had_ been a noise close by…

He dropped the tricorder to the forest floor as something constricted around his neck. Rope. He could feel the burn of tattered chord. Struggling, clawing in sudden desperation, his fingers sought a space where they could work their way around the noose - perhaps even loosen the grip that wrapped itself still tighter around him.

_It's no use_, he realised. Someone was behind him, a body pressed hard against his back with an arm around his waist to prevent him from turning around. Dancing white lights obscured his vision, and he felt the momentary disorientation that could only have come from one possible source. A transporter beam. But where would anyone around this valley have access to a transporter?

The room in which he finally materialised was too dark to offer any clues. But at least the rope had loosened with his return to solid form. He dropped to his knees, gasping painfully, every breath rapid, shallow and fractured. Clutching his throat with one hand, he forced himself to swallow, and struggled to regain control.

_Slow_, he half growled in the silence of his own thoughts. _Before you hyperventilate_. But each attempt to force himself to breathe more deeply was answered by a fresh burst of agony in the muscles of his lungs. And there was a musty smell in the air, a distant sound of something dripping. It stank.

"That was just a reminder," hissed an unfamiliar voice from somewhere behind him. Bashir turned slightly, but the surest vision - even enhanced - made little difference when there wasn't any light by which to see.

_But perhaps it's not so unfamiliar. There may be other people somewhere near. Perhaps that was why the voice was whispering so quietly. Or maybe whoever it was had deliberately obscured his speech, particularly so as not to be recognised._

His abductor continued. "Still burns, doesn't it? Remember that, Hu-Man. I'll let you out of here this time. But we _can_ still make you regret ever coming to our valley."

The transporter lights surrounded him again, and Bashir was suddenly back at the forest. Alone.

Hands and knees upon the ground, he fought to contain a sudden fit of dry, wheezing coughs, and steadied himself against the trunk of the nearest tree. He shook away a numb and slightly tipsy feeling, rubbing his neck where the rope had burnt and chaffed against his skin. Leaning back, he thanked whatever powers he could think of for the welcome rush of oxygen in his lungs, and then he looked down to see that there were coloured lights still flashing on the ground.

He reached down and picked up something lying half buried in the leaves. Still frowning, slightly light-headed, he brushed the damp litter from across its smooth grey surface of his tricorder.

* * *

Bashir's thoughts were already moving at high warp as he passed the border of the forest and glanced again at the red and blue symbols still decorating the Centre's side wall. He was far from unaware of how lucky he had been - doubtless still alive only because his attacker had not wished him any permanent harm. The initial burning in his throat had faded a little - but it still nagged him like a dull warning, and he shuddered at his own most recent memories.

Belatedly, a little startled at first, he realised that a small moving figure had crossed his path. He paused, straightening his back and attempting to call the young girl's name - although quick to discover that there was suddenly very little power behind his voice. Instead, he hurried around to the front of the building, purposely adding length to each hasty stride.

Speaking was easier on his throat than it was to whisper or shout. He could use the supporting muscles of his chest and stomach to relieve the pressure on his larynx, and to lend himself a little more volume. The child turned as he called her name, muddy tears running down her cheeks, and Bashir's gaze shifted automatically to the mottled smears of red and greenish-black now trickling down the lower half of her legs.

"Teyanha. You're hurt."

Crossing the distance between them, he clasped the girl's left hand - the one that was not still holding onto her doll. She did not resist as he led her to a large stone at the edge of the path and lifted her to sit upon it. But tears still fell from her eyes and mingled with the clear, sticky mucus spread across her upper lip. She rubbed them away with the back of one small wrist and continued to pout at the dampened soil.

"Sit still a moment." Pushing aside all thoughts of his own continued discomfort, Julian lifted a dermal regenerator from his box of supplies. He was grateful to find that nothing had been stolen by those who spirited him away.

"What's that?" Teyanha asked, mumbling slightly. She sniffed, but the flow of her tears had already dried to a thin trickle.

"It's to make your knees better."

She watched the skin of her legs knit together, until there was nothing left save for a few broad smudges. Staring at where the cuts had been, she flexed her knees and held out one hand. "Can I see?"

"If you're careful." He passed it to her and she turned it over in her hands, crystal blue eyes wide with fascination.

"How'd you fix it all up like that?"

"Your skin is always fixing itself," he replied. "All I did was to make it go faster."

She held up the regenerator. "It's pretty."

Bashir's laughter was automatic, inescapable. He marvelled at how easy it was to change the moods of children.

"And this…" he continued, and handed her something else. "This is to make the tears go. Humans call them humbugs." It had been an interesting challenge, to get a close enough approximation from the station's replicators - and a fascinating way to occupy his spare time, in attempts to supplement the taste with something approaching nutritional value.

Teyanha turned the hard-boiled sweet, thoughtfully, deliberately, around her mouth. Her tongue poked through half grown front teeth with the beginning of a broad, sudden grin. "Yum," she concluded, finally.

She pointed to another instrument that he'd stored next to a row of tightly rolled bandages. "What's that?"

Manoeuvring himself to sit upon the rock beside her, Bashir started to tell her how to fix a broken bone.

* * *

Julian stepped back to observe as Teyanha knelt on the ground with a twig in one hand, which she ran in broad strokes over the body of her doll, loudly insisting that she was a doctor too and that this was her _derblegerator_.

"Well then, Doctor Teyanha," he told her, noting that he would have to do something soon about his own still scratchy voice. "Don't forget, smooth and even."

Somebody else watched them - unseen at first, then obscured a little by the surrounding shade. But when Bashir looked again, the distant, humanoid shape took on a recognisable form. Raven hair, grey face, round, dark eyes peering from between two trees. "Rul."

Anger flashed across the boy's face - silent, ice cold. And as their eyes connected, he flinched and hobbled away, disappearing quickly into the dappled forest.

"He won't come," Teyanha announced. "Even when Jaliya says he has to and he gets in trouble if he doesn't, he won't come."

They both stared at the place where Rul had been - and where, for a long time afterward, his ghost seemed to linger in every shadow.

* * *

Rubbing the skin of her face with both hands, Jaliya turned back towards the screen. But what had begun as a whispered sigh ended up as a loudly frustrated moan. The face looking back at her was older than she remembered. The woman had grown slightly pale in the intervening months, and her once dark hair was streaked with reefs of grey. But her plum-blue pinafore still bore patches of white where she had rubbed the dusty powder from her hands. That was something which would never be forgotten - the layers of stone ground flour that always settled over Jaliya Refal's face and clothes.

"I'm fine, Mother." Not that anything she said would make the slightest difference. It didn't matter how much clear conviction she injected into her reply, her mother was far too stubborn to be easily persuaded.

"Did you forget that I can see you there?" said the woman on the screen, lines deepening across her brow. "You're losing weight again."

"Why, _thank _you."

"That wasn't a compliment, Tal," her mother scolded. A single strand of hair hung down across her eyes, a fugitive from the tightly confining bun she always twisted high upon the back of her head. And so far, it was a clear sign of annoyance that she hadn't bothered to brush it away. "You're too thin. You always have been, and you're worrying your father, too. We've been hearing such things…"

_Such as_? Jaliya thought defensively. _And who's been telling you_?

"You should be at home with your family," the old woman continued with the same well-worn arguments as though oblivious to the fact that they had never been convincing. "Not all that way on the other side of the planet."

"Kendra Province is hardly…"

"You know what I mean."

_Of course I do_.

She could feel the heat of irritation beneath her skin, face reddening slightly, eyes moist with the promise of angry tears. It always ended the same way, with her mother's steady lecture running through her head long after their communication ended, overpowering her own small voice as surely as if her mouth had been plugged with swamp moss. But not before she'd been left shouting, trembling, pinned down by her mother's relentless stare. And every time, the last image she saw was Refal's smug conviction that the self control her daughter could never find was what ultimately decided the contest between them.

_Not this time_, the younger woman told herself.

"Keros would have…" It was out before she could stop it. She looked away, suddenly ashamed, feeling more like a petulant child than a fully grown adult with responsibilities of her own.

"Would have what?" her mother demanded, an immediate hard edge behind her words.

_Nothing_, Jaliya longed to say. A sickly, churning sensation twisted deep in her stomach, and the ache of it spread quickly to the base of her throat. Her mother's watching eyes were severely tight and grim, her lips pressed together, demanding an answer.

"Keros would have understood," Tal whispered flatly. "This is something I have to do."


	6. Memories

There was an unexpected sound at the door, almost in the instant that the pale face of Jaliya's mother finally disappeared from view. With an anxious gasp, surprised at how the noise had startled her, the young woman span around to face its source.

"Oh, I'm sorry," stammered Bashir. "I didn't… ah… That is, I didn't mean to intrude. If I'd known you were busy… um… I'll come back later. Excuse me."

He flashed an apologetic smile her way, and turned to go.

"Keros was my brother," Jaliya called suddenly. Bashir was halfway out of the door, but he stopped when he heard the sound of her voice. The Bajoran woman's gaze was once again fixed upon the now-blank monitor. But now that she had his attention, her voice dropped to something far quieter. "In case you were wondering."

She looked over her shoulder, and saw that he was still watching from the entrance. He'd changed his outfit since she'd seen him earlier that morning, now sporting a loose, dark jersey with the collar brought up all the way to his chin. But she noticed his eyes in particular - sharp and alert. Searching, even intense. And she discovered to her surprise that she had not stopped talking. Even after all these years, she had never suspected that she would have so much to say.

* * *

__

_The later hours of the night were approaching fast, to signal the end of Jaliya Tal's eleventh birthday. Brother and sister huddled together in the corner formed by two thin, perpendicular walls - the tiny space that they had made their own. "What is it?" asked the girl as Keros reached into a small ochre-tinted bag he always carried across both shoulders. She'd never seen him without it. Her brother's satin-blue eyes sparkled at the corners as with a conspiratorial smile, he raised a finger to his lips._

"_It's a secret."_

_Pulling apart the outer edges of his bag, he reached inside and handed something to his younger sister, who gasped with sudden, irrepressible delight._

"_Hasperat rock cake?" she exclaimed, hoarse with the effort of holding back her voice. She longed with every part of her to shout it to the sky. An explosion of taste at its very centre, crisp and sugary at its crust… The hard, porous cakes were her favourite treat of all. Her hollow belly growled in anticipation as she breathed in the fruity aroma. "This must have taken… How did you ever find hasperat _rock_ cake?"_

"_Let's just say that I know some people who know some other people…" Keros winked._

_Then the child saw. There had been an amulet, a slender jewel attached to a leather chord around his neck. Now that which her older brother had possessed for as long as she could remember was gone. And she reached an immediate decision._

"_Here." Crumbs spilled lightly around her as she snapped the cake in two and handed one of the broken halves to her brother._

"_Tal," his words were very nearly an admonition, and he shook his head. "It's yours."_

"_But it's not as much fun to eat it all alone," the girl pleaded._

_Seeing her face, Keros nodded with a smile. Moonlight flashed on the surface of his teeth as he accepted his share. "In that case, thank you. But I'll save this for later, all right? I don't have time to eat it right now."_

_He was already starting to rise into a loose crouch._

"_Where are you going?" Tal asked, her voice soft and plaintive._

_He patted her shoulder, a strand of dark hair falling down across one of his eyes. "Somewhere I need to be, that's all." Then without warning, he wrapped her in a strong embrace, arms tightening with every moment as though he could not imagine ever letting go. The pressure of it was hurting her chest and shoulders, but Tal made no effort to tell him so._

"_Somewhere I need to be…" he whispered again, although she wondered in later years if it was just her memory making his voice so particularly sad. "I'll see you soon, kid. Happy birthday."_

* * *

"_I'm in the Resistance," Keros had told them, almost a week before._

_Jaliya Refal's earring swayed with every shake of her head, but it was the glint of disbelieving tears that had especially caught her daughter's attention._

"_If this is another of your pranks…" The woman's voice was taut and strained._

_Tal watched her brother's face for a glimmer of amusement, the beginnings of a smile, or any sign of a joke about to be revealed. She didn't find any._

"_Mother. Father. Tal…" A little quieter when he said his sister's name, but the serious edge in his voice did not soften. This time his words were slow and clear. Full of determined pride. "I'm in the Resistance."_

* * *

"He still had it in his pocket when they found him." She stopped, quiet, pensive, struggling to push her thoughts into the air. "The cake we shared, that is. The soldiers said he must have stolen it and that's why they added petty theft to their list of charges against him."

"It's not your fault." Bashir had settled beside her, where he'd watched and listened without a word to say. Not until her story had run to its conclusion.

Jaliya nodded. "I know."

"No," he insisted. She wondered why she hadn't noticed how quiet and searching those earnest brown eyes could be, with a gaze that seemed to look beyond her face and reach down to her very centre. "Listen to me. Your brother made his own choices, and the soldiers made theirs. It's not your fault."

With a slow, outward breath, she rested her head against her hands and threaded both sets of fingers through her hair. "I know." Her companion's arm was warm around her shoulder, and she surprised herself at how small and tired her own voice had become.

It struggled through an ever-tightening ache at the depths of her throat. "That is… Logically, I know."

Bashir was quiet as he bowed his head just slightly towards the top of her hair. Jaliya Tal raised her own eyes to look directly into his. The touch of his lips had lingered, and now the rim of her eyes was slightly moist, her skin flushed and warm.

But she pulled away. "Julian, I can't do this."

"Do what?" There was something else in his expression now - kindness, compassion, but overlaid with such forlorn, bewildered longing that Jaliya was only distantly aware that she was holding in her breath.

And, by the Prophets, she wanted him too.

"This," she choked, gesturing helplessly. "I can't do… this."

"Sorry." He backed away, with such a wounded, apologetic expression that she could do nothing to hold back a barely voluntary smile.

"No. I'm sorry," she told him. "I didn't mean to hold you up. What was it that you came for?"

Bashir stared into her eyes, and blinked a few times as if he could hardly remember having entered the room to begin with. "Oh," he said finally. "I… Nothing. Really. It's nothing."

* * *

_The nocturnal darkness was cold enough to bite, crystalline blades of ice already clinging to the edges of every jagged fallen leaf. The child's loose-fitting clothes were far too thin to provide much comfort against the chill. But she crawled out anyway and sat by the entrance, her eyes tracing outlines along each dimly illuminated trail. Her parents slept. Her brother was already out of sight, and her fingers were stiff with the touch of frost. And yet… For the first time in many days, she did not feel the cold._

_Tal had eaten little that day, save for a shallow helping of the same thin, watery soup they'd been feeding her for the past month and a half. Her stomach was even emptier than it felt; if anything was certain, she was certain of that. But she pushed away the urge to guzzle her entire birthday treat in one gigantic mouthful. Instead, she savoured the taste, wondering why everything was so much sweeter when taken in small bites - and when she spared the time to roll it around on the tip of her tongue._

_She watched the light cast by two high moons. Both created long, black shadows across the ground, and their reflected beams were turning the grass to silver, although it was far too dim to make out any true colours. As she ate, she imagined that Keros and his friends would be scrambling diagonally downhill, beckoning to each other, hearts pounding with fearful exhilaration. She wondered what fascinating stories he would have to tell her in the morning._

_And she smiled to the ice-touched night, just as if her brother could sense that she was smiling. "I'll see you tomorrow," she whispered. The last word lingered in the air._

Tomorrow_._

* * *

"My son," Elmek whispered, hands shaking so badly that they barely found enough strength to clasp the thick-edged padd. "My son…"

The graphic in the corner no longer showed that dark eyed toddler whose image had carried him through his journey. The eyes of this child were sharp, world weary, far more akin to the memories he held of his late wife than those of the baby in her arms. And they held nothing of the joy his father had seen when the colourful world around them was still something bright and new.

_What have they done to you, Aruvel_? Elmek found himself imagining that somewhere, somehow, the boy might even sense his unspoken missive. _Whatever it is, wait for me. We'll be together soon. I'm coming_.

And then his attention was drawn away from the face of his child, to the sharply illuminated words at the very top of the screen. The Cardassian gasped. "He kept his nickname." A wild, cackling laugh escaped him, startling his Bajoran guest. "_That__'__s_ why there was no record on file. It was his _nick_name!"

Muscles creaking slightly with age, Orlana rose slowly and patted his arm. He caught a brief glimpse of her face, saw her sharing his smile, and then she was making her way back towards the door.

"Wait," the Cardassian called, then added as an afterthought, "Please."

She stopped just by the exit.

Elmek took a moment to gather enough of his thoughts to remember exactly what he was wanting to say. "Why are you helping me?" he asked, finally.

His visitor turned, and he felt a sudden, twisting pain at the sight of her expression. Orlana's glass-green eyes were already moistened by a shallow film of tears, so that long before she spoke, Elmek realised he already knew what her answer would be.

"Because I lost children too," she whispered. "Now I can only wish you luck in finding yours."

* * *

He hadn't wanted to interrupt Jaliya's story. She needed to talk, and he was no more certain than she was of when she might have found another opportunity. Yet there was time in abundance to take on extra burdens. So he would say nothing for now. For the course of that day, at least, Julian could be vigilant enough for them both.

"Then let me guess, Doctor." There was a man on the screen now. Or at the very least, this being had shaped himself into the likeness of a man. His level blue eyes continued to stare without blinking. "You don't trust the competency of those already in charge, so you've decided to turn yourself into a one man Security squad because of course, naturally or otherwise, you're _that_ much smarter than they ever were. Do I have the scenario essentially correct?"

"You weren't there, Odo. You didn't see…"

The Security chief leaned forward slightly. Every movement was meticulously deliberate. "See what?"

"You didn't _see_ how it happened."

"Would I have assessed the situation any differently if I had?" responded Odo. "Is that what you're saying? What would I have seen, to make me change my mind?"

Julian realised at that moment that his fingers had brushed involuntarily against his throat. "Nothing," he muttered, and lowered his right hand again towards his lap. "Just a feeling, that's all. A bad feeling. But listen - isn't there anything you could…?"

The Constable interrupted him, steady blue eyes never wavering. "I cannot help you if you are not even prepared to be honest with me," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"You forget that I am an observer," Odo pointed out. "The weather on Bajor is far from cold at present, yet you are wearing a high collared jacket. And now that I think of it, I have seen you wear collars before - but never all the way up to your chin."

Bashir shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. "Perhaps I just felt like a change."

The only response from the Constable was a quietly unconvinced grunt.

"So there's nothing you can do, is that what your saying? Even with access to some of the most comprehensive records in the entire Bajoran system…?"

"I am Chief of _Station_ Security, Doctor." Odo was one of the few who hadn't taken to calling Bashir by his first name, and one of the few he'd never asked to do so. "The Kendra Province of Bajor is entirely out of my jurisdiction, and for that to change, I would need something far more concrete than just 'a feeling'. I would need evidence of related events. Do you have any?"

* * *

Bula Johl had been twelve on the very first night, when his father's bad dreams had started. Even now, he continued to stand by the door and watch every toss of the old man's head, every troubled rise of his chest. In the limited illumination of Torem's own room, his face was as pale as his hair, twisting into grotesque shapes as he struggled to free himself from the cage of his own nightmares. There were no words to be found in the old man's sleep-driven mumbles, nothing to hint at what kind of dream monsters he was so desperate to outrun. But it was no difficult chore for his son to attempt a guess.

_Twelve year old Johl barely heard the noise that had woken him. _They're coming_, was his first thought. _Finally, they're coming for you_. Now wide awake, he lay in the midst of his tangled bedclothes, panting heavily, listening to every scrape and murmur that the darkness around him had to reveal._

_There was something different about that night - a voice. He focused on the ceiling, willing it to go away, counting under his breath as his mother had taught him - to distract himself from his fears. But even after he had reached a hundred; one hundred and fifty… Two hundred… The same noise still crept softly into his hearing. Wrapping a blanket around his shoulders so that its draping corners brushed against the ground, he dropped to the floor on both large, pale feet._

_Johl was a tall boy, almost unnaturally thin - like uncooked dough stretched upwards in the seconds before the bakers pounded it into shape. Even through the rough cover of his blanket, the boy's fingers clearly discerned every hard, slender rib along his chest, and now his hands and feet were whitened even further by the cold._

_He stood for a moment, blinking away sleep, and begun a silent journey towards the part of the house where his father had settled for the night. With eyes wide enough to gather every available sliver of light, and both soles growing painfully numb with every step, the son imagined that he was treading over ice. Nervously, he followed the sound. "Father?" he whispered, finally approaching the bed._

_He jumped backwards, answered only by an abrupt, bone-jarring cry._

_His father settled just as unexpectedly, and mumbled something the boy could never have hoped to understand. With his next attempt, Johl's voice was stronger and louder, fortified with a dose of stone-hard determination. "Father." He reached forward to shake the man awake._

_The muscles of Torem's arm were raised into ridges, one large and powerful hand wrapped far too tightly around the wrist of his boy. His eyes snapped open - grey and wild - and the thin-limbed child felt tears of shock, as he was pulled in even closer._

"Father!" _shouted Johl, struggling to jerk free from the pain, the steel grip, the sudden ice in his father's gaze. And now his voice was barely a gasp. "Father, it's me. It's Johl."_

_The grip on his arm did not ease. "Johl," the boy tried again, his throat dry. "Your son." But even the largest, most broad-necked Cardassian soldiers had not made him so horribly certain. A man's strong grip - if tightened far enough - could snap a child's bones like dry and brittle tinder._

Bula Johl had grown to be every bit as wiry as his father, and just as sure of his own practised strength - even as Torem's had begun to fade. But now he could only sigh and return, defeated, to his bed. Once there, he lay upon his back, staring restlessly at the drifting shadows on each rough-edged wall. The elderly man would have no wish to find him watching when he woke. Against this enemy, they were both as powerless as if the younger Bula had still been twelve years old.

There would be nothing to say come morning - he had long since learnt not to ask Torem about his dreams. But Johl could listen to the old man's voice. All the waking attention he could spare could be given to the sounds from the adjacent room. He owed it to his father to listen.

* * *

Well, he _had_ promised them a story. Or, at least, his friend Taenor Lahn had promised. But even if the old priest's vow had not technically been his own, Julian was only too happy to play along.

"_Fee fi fo fum _- I smell the blood of an Englishman…"

"Did the giant really eat him?" Lerin interrupted, eyes open wide with bloodthirsty delight.

_Is that boy the only one here who wishes that he did_? Bashir shot him a pointed glare. "You'll find out when we _come_ to it."

"What's an English-_mahn_?" asked Odal.

"I'll tell you later. May I continue?"

Both boys nodded, and Bashir responded with a mock bow. "You're too kind."

It was as happy as he'd seen them in all the days since his arrival. And he was especially pleased to note that even Jaliya's movements had grown fluid and easy, the tension falling from across her shoulders. Her smile was open, and her laughter as spontaneous as ever he'd heard it. Despite an occasional wary glance to the darkness outside the window, Julian could not help but be drawn into their comfortable mood.

He found himself considering the story as it passed, reflecting that Garak's assessment of his planet's folk tales had been deceptively accurate. Being eaten, poisoned, kidnapped, fattened for the slaughter… These themes were so common to the narratives of Human children. And who was he to say that the giants were entirely wrong? Jack had robbed their house when he could have simply slipped away, and murdered the husband of a woman who was really only trying to help him.

_It would have made for quite an interesting lunch time debate_, he told himself. _Perhaps you should mention it next time you're on the station_.

He smiled, briefly recalling how his commanding officer, then Commander Sisko, had reacted to being roused in the dead of night, by a nervous young doctor earnestly begging the loan of a runabout. _Because Garak wanted to go to Bajor. And he still hadn__'__t said exactly why_.

_It had started with a boy, dark eyed, strikingly attired, whose single earring caught the light and flashed brightly against a face as grey as the station walls. And the first thing the child had done was to force his teeth deep into Elim Garak's hand._

_Miles had tried to stay in touch with this same adolescent boy, sending letters whenever he could and even an occasional note from his daughter. But with the little news that forced its way out of Cardassian space, it was little wonder that their contact had stopped. Whatever else had happened in the interim, the child's future - _young man's _future, he supposed it would be by now - did not look promising._

"And then what?" someone was saying.

"Sorry?" Julian blinked, realising unexpectedly that he'd allowed his thoughts to wander. "Oh. Of course. Where was I?"

"The giant just went to sleep," a quiet, slightly musical voice reminded him. He redirected his attention to where another boy had approached them from behind, and was settling onto the floor in a place just barely within their little circle.

Rul's dark eyes watched in steady anticipation. "You were about to tell us if Jack was able to escape."


	7. Thunderclouds

Bula Torem paused to note a soft flutter, like the touch of insect wings beneath his skin. _Nothing_, he reminded himself, rubbing his chest until the uneasiness of it had faded to little more than a memory. _It__'__s nothing important. Not like it hasn__'__t happened so many times before_.

But something _was_ different about this morning. The slightest hint of vertigo, which passed in a moment and left him with the echoes of a faintly throbbing ache at one side of his head.

* * *

"_Right then. Time to wheedle you out of hiding…"_

_The Mundara virus was every bit as tricky as any other. Before lodging in close to every major organ of its hosts, it would conceal itself in their circulatory systems, quietly, innocuously disguised, multiplying unnoticed as it steadily took over the victim's blood. Too often those infected were beyond saving before the cells of their immune systems had even discovered that anything was amiss._

"_I'm busy," Julian snapped, finally aware of a reddish-orange patch of colour at the very edge of his vision. He hunched forward, not taking his eyes from the fluctuating display._

_If he could only discover what it was about his own _Human_ physiology that had so far prevented him from falling ill. Was it his immune system that was behaving differently, or was it the virus? And if only there was something to be done about these constant interruptions…_

"_How long have you been working this time?" came the voice of his elderly friend._

"_Not long enough."_

_Fourteen hours. Maybe fifteen. Or, if he was honest, probably more like twenty…_

"_Then I guess there's nothing left for me to say." Vedek Taenor paused, but then his words turned to a long, wet spasm from deep inside his chest._

_That caught Bashir's attention. He rose hastily, but the priest was equally quick to shoo him away._

"_I'm fine."_

"_Like Hell you are." Intensity rising in his voice, Bashir crossed the floor in two long strides, and looked deep into the eyes of his elderly friend. "How long have you had that cough?"_

"_Two days," Taenor replied once it had subsided a little more. "And that's no more than two, out of all the seventy four years of my life. I'm an old man, Julian. These things happen to old men."_

_But he allowed himself to be ushered to a nearby chair, releasing a sharp outward breath as he dropped his weight heavily onto its base. Once seated, he closed his eyes as if even that one small act had taken his final remaining trace of energy._

"_Frankly," he said, once he had finally regained control over a second noisy coughing fit. "I'm amazed I lasted this long."_

"_You'll last a while longer yet."_

_Secretly making himself the same determined promise, Julian assisted his friend to settle on the nearest vacant bed, but Taenor's weary gaze was still not ready to release him from its hold._

"_I tried my best," the elderly cleric admitted softly, mouth twitching upwards into the faintest of smiles. "Not enough, perhaps. I have never been a healer. And yet I sense that you are."_

"_I _was_," Bashir found that he was confessing. He committed himself briefly to a contemplative study of the narrow flap of skin between his thumb and index finger. "I was a doctor. Once. Not any more." Looking back, he noticed that the older man had continued to search his face as though for the answer to some great riddle._

_Julian sighed, and shaped his mouth into its best impression of a smile. "You should rest."_

_But instead of surrendering to the gentle temptation of sleep, Vedek Taenor hooked one hand around Julian's shoulder, and pulled him close until the young man could no longer avoid his scrutinising gaze. His voice was quiet, barely able to gather strength. But the ferocity of his words surprised Bashir enough to make him listen._

"_Being a doctor, and being a healer, are _not_ the same thing."_

* * *

The map that Elmek downloaded from the Comnet had been entirely correct, it seemed. Even from a distance, a thin blade of white was already peeking shyly from behind the surrounding forest. The Cardassian waited, hesitating, not entirely sure why his legs so suddenly refused to lead him forward. Or why he was stuck in the same position as though the roots of nearby trees were forcing their way up through the soles of his feet.

_A soldier, once, _he thought. _More recently, a daring escapee. And only now, a coward_?

It wasn't right. He couldn't - _mustn't_ - let it be that way.

Two small figures sat by the steps in front of the building, their appearance so uncannily alike as if someone had held a mirror to the face of a single child. If he'd met these girls at any time before leaving Cardassia, Elmek would have been a little disturbed by the not quite foreign lines upon their skin. But now, after seeing so many Bajoran faces in recent days, even these strange little hybrids barely gave him reason to pause.

"Hello," he said.

Turning his way, the twins confronted him with a double helping of mutely distrustful stares. One was already rising warily to her feet.

"I'm looking for a boy." Elmek told her, wondering uneasily what could be holding back his voice. Clenching both hands to stop them from shaking, he pulled out the padd that Orlana had given him - the one still bearing the image of his son.

The nearest girl frowned when she saw it. But this was no expression of anger, or even the anxiety that had marked her face just moments earlier. It was quiet, pensive… Possibly even… Seeing the change in the youngster's eyes, Elmek allowed the seed of a dream to unfurl within his mind. Almost imperceptibly slowly, like the opening of early morning leaves…

…_Recognition_?

The girl was still silent as she revealed the contents of Elmek's padd to her sister. The same frown now spread across both their brows. Finally, after an agonising pause, the second girl pointed away from the Centre, to where yet more trees stood as though in anticipation. She spoke the first words that Elmek had heard, from either of his new found guides.

"Over there."

* * *

"Wait just a moment," called a voice from the darkness of the loft. "I'll come down to you."

There were scuffles from above, accompanied by the smoothly drifting powder of dislodged straw and dust. The noises drew gradually closer, and finally a large man emerged into the light and descended a ladder, with his back still turned to his waiting guest.

"What was it you wanted?" Nalor asked as he brushed away the finer threads of hay that had attached themselves to his hands and trousers.

"I have a question." Bashir replied without hesitation. "You seem to know this place a lot better than most people around here. It's about your neighbours."

"What about them?"

"Are they dangerous?"

* * *

Bula knew pain. He had encountered it too many times before, at the hands of people who had made a study of ascertaining exactly what would hurt the most. Johl had discovered some of his father's past, but far from all. There had been pain in the Cardassians' holding cells, and again in the camps - where they'd starved him until his bones were as brittle as dry twigs, then beaten him until they cracked apart. He'd been astonished in his youth to learn how many different ways a man could hurt.

But with the passing years, surprise had turned to dull acceptance, and the realisation that harsh and painful was how his life was going to be. He'd grown to expect things that no sentient being should ever have to accustom himself to, much of it before he'd even met Johl's mother, and again at a time when his son was still a child. That was his one regret - that the boy had been nearby to see him beaten.

But there were no tormentors on this day. The soldiers had gone, leaving nothing behind for him to fight, save for the torment of his broken body. No other humanoid was inflicting these jolts of agony surging all the way along his arm. He looked down, saw his own tendons raised impossibly along his wrist, felt the pressure of it all the way to the deepest part of his head. Every breath stabbed; his chest could no longer rise beyond the pain. Surrounded by the isolation of his fields, Bula Torem was falling. Losing…

Dying.

* * *

Nalor settled himself at the table where his guest was already seated. "I don't know what I could possibly tell you."

"I'm not entirely sure either, but… anything at all. Whatever you can think of would help a lot."

The farmer sighed, gazing momentarily through his open window. "They're good enough people, for the most part," he said eventually. Bashir said nothing of his own experience. "They're just hurt. You understand? And when people are hurt, they _don't_ like to be reminded of their pain."

Bashir nodded, believing - at least in part - that he was beginning to understand. "And having the Cardassians' children within such easy walking distance is one more in a long series of reminders."

"Not just Cardassians," said Nalor.

Glancing sidelong at his stringy-haired companion, Bashir paused to allow his thoughts to surface. "You're worried too."

"Aren't you?" came the farmer's response. "You never really needed me to outline the mood of the locals. And now there's all this business with the Dominion… They're a powerful enemy. You know that. Far more dangerous than Cardassia alone. Take a jar of water, and fill it up with mud from the river. You can wait as long as you like for it to settle. But then it only takes an instant to shake it up again."

He leaned forward. "Listen, Earth man. I like having you here. It's good to have more than the usual company on occasion. But my advice to you is to get away _before_ that happens."

* * *

"Father!" Johl shouted. The cry that finally reached his ears was barely a word.

The soil enhancer he'd been carrying in both strong arms fell dangerously close to his feet. But the younger Bula gave no further thought to the damage it might have done. He shot forward, bounding across the field as though propelled by the force of a hurricane. His own heart was pounding from more than mere exertion as he saw that his father's face was tinged with blue - lips grotesquely reminiscent of the stains that had lined Johl's mouth as a child, when he was caught guzzling stolen berries from the next door orchards.

_What do I do_? Hunching over as though in prayer, he pleaded with himself, with the surrounding trees, with the distant Prophets in their Celestial Temple. None of these accorded him any answers. The son pressed his fingers against his father's neck, fumbling for a pulse - which he did not find. _But how would I know_? he despaired. _What if I'm doing this all wrong_? Johl was no healer. All he had was raw, anxiety-fuelled instinct, and his instincts were of little more use than if he really had left it entirely to the Prophets.

"Father." Louder now, shaking the old man like he was merely asleep. As impotent a son as that pasty young boy he'd once been, trying to rouse his father from one of those regular nightmares.

"_Torem_!"

His head jerked upwards at the approach of footsteps, revealing the brown faced seventeen year old farmhand his father had hired to assist with the maintenance and sorting of his katterpod harvest. _Anyone but you_, Johl thought, hope returning rapidly to despair. The boy was just a step above worthless on the farm, but perhaps there was a chance he could be of some small use.

"Don't just stand there, Rustahn," barked the farmer's son, his own ineptitude adding fuel to the frustration in his voice. "Go. Find whoever you can - we have to get help."

"Now!" he yelled.

_Useless boy_.

As the youth sped across Bula's farm, limbs flailing like bits of loose string, Johl turned back to clasp his father's hand. It was rough to the touch, crossed with dark lines where mud had gathered in every small cut, and with fingertips as white and cold as morning frost.

"Father." Leaning forward, he dropped his voice to a whisper, and clenched his jaw against unwelcome sobs. Why hadn't anyone come to aid them? His face was aching with the rush of blood, but he fought to hold back his own tears. To start crying now was too much like an admission of defeat. None in the Bula clan had been caught in the middle of such weakness - not for a tremendous count of years. And even as the old man's face turned from white to stark grey, he could not allow himself to admit that his father was defeated.

* * *

_It had been in front of him all along. A protein buried deep inside the roots of one of Keiko O'Brien's plant samples appeared to act as a natural booster for the immune system, just enough so that it could finally recognise the infection within. For the first time, it appeared that a steady drop in the viral count in each vial of blood would continue to subside to a far more tolerable level. Within the space of twelve to thirty hours, Bashir was able to calculate, depending on the overall health and age of the patient. But in nearly every projection he took himself through, they did recover._

_Why couldn't he have thought of it before?_

_The soft moss grew all around the lower cliffs of Dakhur Province. He'd collected a sample in a sealed container and shut himself away to study it in detail. He remembered wondering if it could be of some use as a natural interferon, or perhaps a shield to prevent all but the most stubborn infections from taking hold. But then he set it to one side before he'd even heard of the Mundara plague, thinking that he would get back to it later. There were too many other interesting discoveries to make._

_He ran the same test once, twice… every time with his heart racing - imagining every kind of wretched disappointment. By sunset, his experiment had reached its third and final stage. As he watched the repeated decrease in viral concentrations, Julian leant back and rubbed his face with both hands, too tired even to smile._

_The discovery had both delighted him and brought him close to tears. If only he could have realised a day ago, or two. If only he hadn't been as willing to abandon the work he'd done with Keiko's research group. But that had hardly seemed important with the news of what was taking place. And was no more so now, he insisted to the silence. Later, there would be time for regrets. People were depending on him. Taenor had said he was still a healer. Whatever else, he could not allow his friend to die._

"_What is that?" the old man asked, his voice never rising above a whisper._

"_Something I want to try," replied Bashir. He longed to tell everything. But even the most eager enthusiasm was hardly productive, after a point. _Wait and see_. "With a little luck, you should be feeling better soon."_

"_You look as if you could _use_ a little luck," commented Taenor._

_The young man's smile was tight and exhausted. "I have to make sure this gets around," he said quietly. "I'll come back soon to check on you."_

"_And then sleep?"_

_Bashir wondered if he'd caught a touch of doubt in the old priest's voice. He smiled, nodding. "And then sleep."_

Perhaps_, he added secretly. There was only enough in this first batch of medicine to treat five - possibly seven - more people at most. He was already bracing himself for a long night making more._

* * *

The boy was standing exactly where the twins had said he would be, staring into the canopy of a nearby tree with thick, dark lines of bark peeling roughly from its surface. As Elmek watched, he lifted a handful of pebbles from the ground, transferred them individually to his left hand, and threw each one all the way to the top of the trunk. Following the stones' trajectory with his gaze, Elmek saw that something was perched in the fork of one branch - the tight-packed, tangled shape of a nest.

"Aruvel."

The boy turned, and stepped back, regarding this heavy newcomer with a wary sidelong frown. One grey hand still fidgeted with his collection of rocks, and he gave no sign that he even recognised the name. A deep pain clenched at Elmek's heart. The doubts he'd barely known he still possessed soon vanished like forgotten whispers. This child was exactly the right age, just as Aruvel would have been. And there was no mistaking those deep-set obsidian eyes.

"Who are you?"

There was stone behind that gaze, and a hostile edge underlying every word like the hardening of molten rock. Elmek choked on his reply. "Your father, Aruvel."

"That's not my name." Shaking his head, the boy turned to leave. Gorol Elmek watched his child's broad, unsteady gait, one leg battered and barely functioning.

_What have they done to my boy_? He could only imagine, and his own imagination scared him.

He stepped forward again, and called with the desperation of a man who saw his final chance before him.

"Rul!"

The boy stopped. There was tension in the too-straight set of his back and shoulders, even before he turned around.

"Did you never wonder how you got that name?" Elmek spoke from the very bottom of his throat. "You _are_ my son. Your mother and I, we named you Aruvel. But you shortened it yourself when you were barely two years old. How would I know that, if what I have said were not the truth?"

The boy stepped away, but Elmek interrupted his retreat. "Perhaps you don't remember. You were still so young at the time. But see? I've remembered for both of us. You can have no idea how I've held to every memory. The day I first saw your face. Holding you in my arms, telling you stories. And the very first time you called me Father."

"I never called you Father." But there was a little less certainty in his words this time. A little less resistance.

"Aruvel, you are my son…"

"Why are you doing this?" The boy's hard gaze turned fierce, like an explosion of rogue energy. "I already said, I don't know that name!"

"But, Aruvel…" Elmek pleaded against his child's sudden, hate filled rage.

"I've never seen you before," shouted Rul. "I don't know _who _you are."

He shoved his way past the startled newcomer, who stood and watched him disappear. Gorol Elmek leaned forward, hands pressed to his thighs, longing to believe that the stomach-curdling nausea and the weakness in his knees would pass. His son's final cry echoed painfully in his memory, even when he looked up to see the double-image of staring, open-mouthed twins. It was the boy's voice which had screamed at him - the voice of _his_ boy.

"Just leave me alone!"

* * *

_First the Cardassians_, Johl thought, back and shoulders tense with impotent rage. _Then the Federation_…

And who would come next? The Dominion? His people's will to fight may well have died with Federation promises, but as far as he was concerned, the old factions had ultimately been right from the beginning. New invaders threatened from every side. They would bring Bajor's old enemies right back in. And if they didn't, was he now to wake to the regular sight of those pebble-faced Jem'Hadar patrolling the borders of his father's katterpod fields? One grey soldier to be replaced with another?

_Not this time_, he decided. He might not be able to keep the aliens from invading the Bajoran system - not alone, anyhow. But he could at least do something to stop them from smothering the life from his valley.

The son positioned his father's heavy arms across his heart, and with that action, his sense of conviction grew. This was no accident of fate. Bula Torem had been broken, starved, beaten so many times that his once young body was as haggard as that of a man forty years beyond his age. "He was sixty seven," whispered Johl, rising to his feet. Certainty burnt at the depths of his gut. The Cardassians had killed his father, as surely as if he had never even lived those extra years.

And what was their next generation doing barely two kilometres from his own ancestral home?

* * *

Could it ever really have been any different? The question played again, with no more of an answer than it had offered the first time he'd asked. Elmek found himself wondering if he would ever shake this overwhelming, black despair. To come all this way, discover his son… and for the boy to want nothing to do with him? And who would catch enough of his thoughts to give him a reply?

There were times when pain could be comforting, when it was easy to wrap it around him like a blanket and shut himself away from the eyes of the universe. But this would never be a comfort to him. He could only watch each carefully constructed dream break apart and blow away like dust and ash, disappearing as surely as the residue of kanar that was cold against his hand. Even the glass that held it was chipped at the rim.

"Cardassian," snarled a voice at his ear. With a deep and troubled sigh, Elmek turned his head towards the speaker.

Amon moved deliberately to claim the seat opposite him. He nodded to the bartender, who relaxed somewhat, but continued to track them warily from his place at the counter.

"So." Amon's yellowed face gleamed with grease and sweat. "You're back."

"Perhaps I am," said Elmek. shifting his gaze the near empty glass in his hands. The liquid at the bottom was no higher up than the width of one calloused finger. But the other man had not ceased staring beneath his dark and heavy brows.

"You shouldn't ha' returned, Cardassian."

Elmek said nothing.

"We told you in a thousand ways, no-one wants you here." Something flashed in Amon's hand, and the other man looked down to find the point of a fractal blade pressing lightly against his torso. "You really ought to've listened."

_Go on_, Elmek thought, allowing this silent challenge to surface from behind his eyes. The Bajoran's threat had not come to the attention of their sharp-eyed host, it seemed, but his weapon had not even pierced the Cardassian's skin. _I don't have anything left to fight you for. Nothing to lose - not any more_.

He thought about how it would feel once the knife slid into him - separating skin and flesh, severing his tortured nerves. But one way or another, the pain would not last forever. It would be as nothing - meaningless - compared to the ache he already felt. And when it was over, he would welcome the shroud of dark oblivion.

He was taller than Amon, but that meant very little while the smaller man still carried a blade. Elmek spoke. His voice was cold and resigned. "If attacking an unarmed man is all it takes to make you feel big," he intoned. "Then go right ahead. There's nothing you can take from me."

Amon's mouth twitched into a wicked half-smile. "There's the boy."

"What?" A sudden shock ran coldly through Elmek's veins.

Nodding to Orlana's padd still set upon the table, Amon transformed his smile to a fiercely grotesque leer. Only his mouth was smiling. The display still bore a holo-image of Aruvel's face.

"What your people did to my cousin," the lank-haired Bajoran whispered, bringing his face so close that their noses almost touched. "I'm gonna do to the boy. I'll gut him like a stuck fish."

The floor beneath Elmek's feet dipped and swayed, as though in the grip of a slow ground tremor, the tavern spinning dizzily around him. It continued its sickening revolutions, faster and faster until he could barely separate his own movements from those of the room. Every line on Amon's brow, even the dull colours of his skin and clothing, were suddenly as clear to Elmek as any one of his most horribly lucid nightmares.

Amon stared, face slackening, progressing from incomprehension, to horror, and finally to a look of pale realisation as he cast it down towards the Cardassian's hand. But then Elmek staggered backwards, face numb and bloodless, recoiling from the sight that met his eyes. He barely noticed the clatter of his fallen chair or the shocked looks from other patrons as - one by one - they turned to see what had caused the sudden commotion.

But his white-knuckled hand refused to loosen its grip upon the same gleaming knife, which only moments ago had been embedded in the chest of the Bajoran Amon.


	8. Cages

It was the same smooth rock where Julian had treated Teyanha, a little over a day earlier. But this afternoon, the shade was somewhat blurred by wide, feathery clouds passing in a steady queue across the sun.

Rul had wrapped himself in a dark, moss-green shirt, rendering him almost shadowlike with the black of his hair and the meagre light of the forest. Bashir approached from behind, every step cautious, but the boy remained seated even as his new companion settled quietly beside him. Julian half expected to see the same fiery anger as he and Jaliya had been seeing all through the morning. But Rul just sighed as though too tired even to protest.

"He's not my father," he muttered to the breeze.

Bashir nodded. "Ah."

The twins had told them everything they could think of to tell, and Rul had stood in silent discomfort until Jaliya finally scolded both girls, warning them to hold their tongues. Then she'd ushered the boy into one of the back rooms and not emerged for over fifteen minutes. When they finally appeared again, Rul was still silent and moody - and with swollen lids at the base of his eyes.

"He's been arrested," the boy said quietly. Julian nodded. This news had not escaped him either. But he caught something else in Rul's expression - something he had seen too often in his own.

"So you weren't _really_ angry with Irexa, or Simi, or any of the others?"

"I was too!"

"Really?" Bashir's eyes watched him, half searching, half challenging.

Instead of an answer, the boy picked up a fallen seed case, and threw it hard against a slender-backed tree. He snatched a rock from the same patch of ground, and looked for a moment as if he would throw this as well. But then he enclosed it in both dirty hands and stared, brooding.

"What will they do to him?"

Bashir considered his answer. "I don't honestly know," he confessed.

And now Rul did throw his rock. "It's not _fair_!" The cry escaped him with not a moment's warning. "What was the point in coming here, if he gets himself locked up like that? I mean, if he has to go around stabbing people, why bother trying to find me at all? Why not just leave me alone?"

As suddenly defeated as his anger had risen, the boy wiped the sleeve of his jacket across his eyes and nose. He lowered his gaze. "I'm never going to see him again, am I?" he whispered.

"I wouldn't say that…" Bashir began.

But Rul shook his head. "I don't want to see him."

"Maybe not." Bashir's reply was just as soft, but clear enough to be easily heard. "It's not a simple choice. You might not be ready to see him yet. But I think it's something you need to try. Because one day when you grow to be an old, old man, you don't want to look back and discover that you missed your chance."

After a long pause, the boy looked up. The expression in his eyes was one which Julian had seen too many times, but never until now on the face of Brethen Rul.

_Pleading. Quiet. Vulnerable._

Secretly, for the boy's sake, he was glad to see it. It was important to admit to a little vulnerability every once in a while.

"Would you come with me?" Rul begged.

And Bashir formed the slightest of smiles. "Of course."

* * *

"I think you'll be pleased to know." The guard offered little indication that he cared whether Elmek was pleased or not. "Amon is going to make a full recovery."

The Cardassian glanced wearily through the transparent barrier of the holding cell.

His guard stepped forward, exaggerating every small movement. "Amon Perel," he persisted. "That man whose life you very nearly took. But it would appear that he is going to live, so you will not be charged with murder under Bajoran law. Instead, the Chamber of Ministers has arranged to have you extradited to Cardassia."

"Extradited," repeated Elmek. The word was bitter dust upon his tongue.

"_Put down your weapon," one of the Security officers had warned him. They had been quick to respond to the calls of patrons, who stood around the scene in a distant, fearful ring. "And step away with your hands raised."_

_Elmek stared, paralysed. "I assure you, I…"_

"Drop your weapon."

_The dagger fell from his slackened fingers, crashing to the ground with a hard metallic clang. Keeping a wary eye on the nearest officer, Elmek took a deliberate step backwards._

"_I won't resist," he promised them._

"_Hands up," the same voice barked. The Cardassian did as he had been ordered, carefully turning both grey-white palms their way. He watched as two more Bajorans - this time in the uniforms of local medics - lifted the wounded man onto a long stretcher, lit from below by the steady light of an inbuilt antigrav unit. _

_As they disappeared in a tumble of lights, Elmek kept his focus on the tensely waiting Security men. They were both so young. Or maybe he was just too old. But they stared at him with frightened eyes and phasers still aimed directly at his chest. He paused, and caught himself wondering if either of them had ever fired at anything but holograms in some training programme._

"Think of it this way," suggested the bearded man who now guarded his cell. "You'll get to see your homeworld again."

Elmek shook his head sadly. "If I go back to Cardassia, I will die. There's nothing for me to be happy about."

* * *

At first glance, the prison grounds might have been mistaken for some kind of community garden, except that the steeply featureless wall that loomed suddenly from the end of the central path could not have been more different from the tiny shrubs that grew in even rows around its edges.

There was usually something vaguely pleasant about the mood of Bajoran architecture. Shapes complimented each other with smooth, quasi-organic curves. Colours were warm and harmonious, and almost always fitted well with the natural tone of the landscape.

Not this time.

A smooth, barely textured block rose like a monolith, or perhaps more like a fortress - with two small painted alcoves about half way up which might once have been windows. Even its predominant shade of lichen green, which might have been somewhat attractive in an arboretum, was distinctly ominous when spread across the surface of the prison.

"Nervous?" Bashir asked Rul.

The boy shook his head, but his brow ridges shifted, knitting together slightly as he stared at the high front entrance. Bashir rested one hand on Rul's shoulder as the pair continued along the same wide path, and cast him a hopeful smile.

Nearing the front door, he gazed up at the sharp, geometric blades of dark brown that curved symmetrically around the awnings. They reminded him of the upper pylons of Deep Space Nine - slumbering remnants of the Occupation, each one protruding inwards and upwards like thorns. "Wait here," he said quietly. Rul obeyed.

At a touch of Julian's hand, a screen lit up at one side of the door, and a tense-jawed Bajoran soon appeared in the familiar light-and-dark beige of Militia Security. "What?" he demanded in a deep, barking voice.

_Nice_, thought Bashir. He kept his answer deliberately steady. "We're here to see one of your prisoners," he said. "Gorol Elmek."

"The Cardassian?" The Security man snorted loudly, although the expression that reached the screen was more of an irritable glare. "What for?"

"Just a visit."

"And who should I say is _visiting_?"

Bashir stepped to one side, so that his younger companion was clearly visible behind him. "His son."

"The boy may enter," the stranger grumbled after an infuriatingly long pause. "But you, stay."

"No problem," muttered Julian. Turning to where Brethen Rul still waited, he clasped the Cardassian boy's upper arm and crouched slightly to look up at his eyes. "Will you be all right?" he asked. Behind them, the door slid loudly open.

The boy's throat tensed slightly, but he nodded.

"That's good," Julian reassured him. "I'll be right outside if you _do_ need me."

There was a stone bench just two steps from the path - hard-surfaced, but smooth enough to settle upon without significant discomfort. As the boy disappeared within the rough green confines of the gaol, Bashir picked his way across the grass towards it. He sat down, leaning forward a little, and pressed one flat palm irritably against the other. Head bowed against his hands, he turned sideways to stare at the high, forbidding wall. And even in its silence, the Bajoran prison seemed to accuse.

"_You don't understand, Jules," his father had told him, during a rare visit to his quarters on Deep Space Nine. "You never did."_

_And hot fury had gripped him like a hand around his chest. Suddenly shouting, an uncontained, uncontrollable flood of words. _He _was not the one who failed to understand_.

Flushed and trembling, he raked his fingers roughly through his hair and clutched each loose, dark strand so tightly that it hurt. He was glad for the pain it gave to him. It was sharp, clear - something better to focus on than the rush of blood to his face, or the ever-constricting pressure against his chest.

At some point, he knew that Rul would emerge. And he would expect to be met by someone with steadier hands than his, whose pulse was not so constantly continuing to throb behind his ears.

* * *

The Cardassian looked up from behind an illuminated forcefield. For a moment his eyes were no longer hidden by dark, impenetrable shadows. He'd been sitting on the barely comfortable bench, shoulders hunched, and with his normally immaculate black hair already frayed and brittle at the edges.

"Aruvel." A soft gasp lined his voice. "Tell me I'm not dreaming."

And then, a wave of sudden horror. Leaping upright, he backed away on stiff, robotic legs. "No. Wait. Tell me that I _am_. You can't be seeing me this way. You can't. Not like… this."

He waved an arm wildly, as though it could cause the boy to vanish like smoke and cobwebs. But Rul's only response was a determined step forward. "I _am_ here, Father."

His voice was a knife twisting deep in Elmek's chest. And to see such tears in his young son's eyes, to feel the same aching flood begin to touch his own…

"Aruvel." It was all he could think of to say.

"Don't send me away," the boy pleaded. "Not like last time. I won't go."

"I wish…" Elmek paused, and placed a hand across his heart. "I wouldn't really leave you, Aruvel. Not in here."

"You did last time." Suddenly, there was cold, seething anger in Aruvel's voice. "I called and called, and then I waited. But you never came for me. Not once."

"They told me you were dead. I couldn't find you, and I couldn't possibly stay. Not after…" His throat clenched against him, words melting away like smoke in the wind. But Gorol forced himself to continue. He owed that to his son. "You have to understand, please. There were too many memories. Of you… of your mother… If nothing else, understand that. They _told_ me you were dead."

"You should have looked harder."

"I should have looked harder." Elmek nodded, barely whispering. "I should have done a lot of things, and I can't take back what wasn't done, any more than I can take back what was."

The silence that followed was long and tense. Aruvel wiped a thin stream of tears from his cheeks. When he spoke again, his voice was free of the anger that had tainted it before - but replaced with a weary sadness that was even more unbearable.

_He's a child_, Elmek thought. _These are not the emotions for a child to be having_.

"What was her name?" the boy asked.

"Her name?" _The penetrating, dark eyes had never failed to attract his gaze. Her hair, long and raven black - catching threads of sunlight in the morning. And that smile… Her smile could make him feel instantly as light as a warm spring breeze_. And then there was her name. He had not spoken it in close to seven years, and he was ashamed at how readily it snagged within his chest.

"Eona," he said. He wanted so desperately to hide his face, to hide away from the deep, consuming shame. But even then, he forced himself to look deep into the questioning eyes of his son. It was true. Rul _did_ have her eyes.

"Her name was Eona."

"How did she…?" Aruvel began, but his voice faded to nothing before he could finish. He was frowning, troubled. "I mean, how…?"

* * *

_Theirs had not been a large house, more of a low-walled cottage than the sprawling, ostentatious mansion of Gul Jirem. By evening, an assortment of junior officers and medium level bureaucrats had gathered in the foyer, dinner guests of the mountainous, thick shouldered gul._

_By the time they found a chance to return home, the night was already dark enough to reveal a dull orange glow behind the distant hills._

"_It's no good," a young soldier shouted in Elmek's ear, as he watched it burn from a distance. Gorol Elmek lurched forward, shouting orders at the younger man to let him go, threatening consequences if his commands were not obeyed._

_Fire reared like an angry snake, turning its face towards the blackness of the sky. The soldier's arm remained, an impassable barrier across Elmek's chest. The youth himself was lightly built, and could not have been far beyond his nineteenth birthday. "I'm telling you, Sir. There's no way anyone could have survived that."_

"_I said let me - go." Elmek's voice rose to a cold-blooded scream. His mouth was wet with escaping saliva. But the strength of this younger man was truly deceptive._

_Cardassians didn't believe in luck. But they believed in shifting fortunes. Only a fool could live in the universe for any time and still consider his position within it to be a safe and constant thing. Jirem boasted that Elmek had been fortunate to have escaped his own death simply by his presence at the mansion, that he really ought to be grateful to his blustering superior officer._

_There wasn't a time when the incident didn't replay inside his memory, when the same question didn't come again and again into his thoughts._

Why?

_The Resistance could have taken a perfect opportunity to dispose of the entire local administration in a single hit. Why target the family of a second rate junior officer - before that officer had even yet returned home?_

_It had taken Elmek many weeks to realise. He knew the answer. The knowledge had turned his heart to cold flame, as searing as any that could have come from the terrorists' bomb._

* * *

"It was a bomb," his father answered. "People told me that you would have both been dead before you'd even had a chance to wake. It was so late at night, and I had told her not to wait up for me."

Aruvel's dark eyes were sparkling, light shifting over a shallow layer of tears. He sniffed once, and rubbed the back of one hand across his nose. "But didn't you even look for her?" he asked hoarsely.

"I called until I no longer had a voice," Elmek replied. "And every day - every _hour_ - took away a little more hope that either of you would ever be found alive."

There was a soft, breezy sound - a door opening. Father and son both turned towards it.

"Time to go," said a deep, harsh voice. The barrel-chested officer watched them from the door, arms pressed tightly against his back.

"Five more minutes," Rul begged.

"Aruvel." Now it was his father whose voice turned slightly hard. "The Security gentleman is right. Five minutes won't make this any easier. The only thing we will find in that time is a longer goodbye."

"But…" the boy protested. The sudden chill in Elmek's eyes was enough to halt him in mid-speech.

"I will go to Cardassia." There was resignation in the big man's voice. "This is the way it has to be. I can be satisfied with that, as long as I know for certain you are safe. All I ask, Rul, is that you don't allow this hurt to consume you from within. Be well. And before you say anything, I do not ask this for myself. I need you to be well for your own sake, my son.

The boy was first back out through the door, mouthing a silent farewell as it slid closed behind him. Alone, in silence, the Cardassian prisoner wondered at the pain now coiled around his heart. Perhaps one day he would take that pain to him, embrace it as he might a child, and turn it to something of his very own. With his head bowed low against his chest, Gorol Elmek sighed and slid to fall upon the hard, narrow bench.

"_Tomorrow, Aruvel," he'd promised his boy. "I have to be somewhere tonight. But tomorrow I will take you back to the river. It will be something special. Something just for us. You'll see."_

* * *

"I'll catch up with you," Bashir told Rul, who regarded him with an expression of anxious scepticism.

"It's all right." He forced a smile, sensing that the boy should not hear any hesitation in his voice. He steered the boy gently back towards the homeward path. "Go. There's something I have to do, that's all."

Uncertainty still held Rul back a little, but he continued obediently in the same direction as before.

As Bashir watched him go, taking care to assure himself that the boy wasn't about to glance behind him, he brushed a hand down from his forehead to his chin. It came away coated with a thin layer of sweat. _Strange_. The weather had not been particularly warm that day. Certainly not enough for him to feel its heat. He already felt heavier than usual, before the boy had even re-emerged from behind the prison's entrance. But now that they were back in the valley, an invisible weight had close to trebled across his shoulders.

It was too much for him to push away with any ease. Arms and legs reluctant to move, they almost failed to support him as he lowered himself into a sitting position by the roots of the nearest of three large trees. Rubbing his eyes on the back of one sleeve, he realised with some distant surprise that they remained closed once he had taken his hand away.

With a sigh, he leaned back against the trunk, and forced them open to gaze at the canopy above. He wondered how old the tree must have been - certainly old enough to twist its limbs into a multitude of shapes, and give it the appearance of tangled shadows.

The ground was swaying beneath him. Drifting, rocking - descending like some large, slow-moving bird. Still oddly warm - although barely caring any more - Bashir peered at the spider pattern of branches and blinked ever more slowly through half closed eyes. There were tears in them.

* * *

"_What did you _do_?" the teenager raged at his father, who paled, eyes wide with sudden fear even as he forced a cautious step forward._

"_Wait. You just don't understand…"_

"_You're right about that!" The boy dodged away from his father's attempt to catch him by the arms._

"_Jules…"_

"_Why would I understand? I mean, what did you… take me apart and stick me back together like just one more project? Is that all I am to you?"_

"_We did it to help you," Father pleaded, half choking through the threat of sobs. "We had your future to consider." But the boy was not moved. This man - this _stranger_ - had no right to plead._

"_You changed me. You… you _violated_ me."_

"_Don't be so melodramatic." The voice of his father turned suddenly hard. "You're our son, Jules. We would never…"_

"_Your _son_ is dead," Julian hissed, and pushed past the man on his way out of the door._

* * *

_And then he was ten years old again, a child waking from a bad dream. "She's dead," he cried to the darkness. He clung to his mother, her arms wrapped tight around him, and Father had a hand upon his back. But this had not been just a dream. Not two nights ago when a young girl's life faded like dust in the wind because the frightened boy at her side had been powerless to do anything but watch._

"_She's dead," he sobbed again._

"_Shh, Jules," whispered Mother as one large, warm hand stroked the back of his head, and her cheek pressed lightly against his own. "We know. But it's over now. You're all right. Shh - you're all right."_

_And he would be. The storm had ended. His parents were close by. And nothing bad would happen as long as they were near._

* * *

_They drifted in from the adjacent room. Voices, talking. Soft and quiet. But he couldn't muster enough energy to react to what they said._

"_He was up all night?"_

"_Very nearly _every _night." The answer came from Vedek Taenor. "I'd be surprised if this last one was any different."_

"_A shame," said the first voice. "I was hoping to speak with him."_

"_You'll get your chance," Taenor promised. There was silence, but for little more time than it would take to draw a breath. Then a noise - something like an old man, sighing. "But just for now, let's give him time to sleep."_

_The three ghostly children still watched him. But now one spoke, with the deep, rough voice of an adult. "Hurry - wake up."_

* * *

Someone was shaking him, firm, insistent, although not rough. "Wake up, Bashir."

He stirred. His first thought was that the voice must have been Captain Sisko's. Had he slept in? Failed to report for duty? But no. This was a deeper, older baritone, spoken much faster than Sisko was wont to do. And besides, he finally remembered with a momentary pang of regret, Starfleet duty rosters just weren't a part of his life any more.

It was harder than usual to prise his lids open. His face tensed with the discomfort of waking. But he blinked his way past a throbbing headache that had formed just behind his eyes - at least until it had dulled to something more bearable. _Next time_, he chastised himself. _Find a softer pillow than the bark of the nearest tree_.

The tight grimace turned to a frown when he saw who had roused him. The expression on Nalor's face was one of marked concern. But there was another dimly perceived memory coming into view, something else the middle aged farmer had been demanding of him.

"Pardon?" Bashir spoke through dry lips.

"You look terrible. Are you all right?"

"Fine." He rubbed his eyes, brushing away a shallow film of sweat.

"Thank the Prophets," said Nalor, with a dramatic breath outward. "For a moment, I thought…"

The ache did not lessen as Julian hauled himself to his feet. If anything, it was even stronger than it had been before. His first steps were clumsy and uncertain, and he was quick to discover that his head was not the only part of him that ached.

Briefly, he grasped a knot in the trunk, and leant against it until the passing unsteadiness seemed to fade. He pressed the ball of one palm against his forehead, rubbing away the tight, dull pain behind it. "I guess I must have nodded off."

_Definitely going to find a better place to sleep next time_.

He turned back to where the watching farmer still studied him nearby, and realised that there was more to Nalor's expression than simple anxiety. It was enough to cast away the final trace of drowsiness.

"What's wrong?"

"Bula Torem is dead," Nalor replied without hesitation.

_The elderly katterpod farmer_, remembered Bashir._ Who waddled as he walked. With the wiry grey hair and permanent frown_… The lines between his own brows deepened. "How? What happened to him?"

"Heart attack," A quiet shake of Nalor's head was almost too subtle to see. "He was an old, sick man. I doubt he could have been saved even if he _had_ been found in time."

"You're certain of that?"

"We'll never know, will we?" The farmer cut short all of Julian's rising expressions of doubt. "But right now, that's not the point. Something's starting, Earth man. Remember that muddy jar I told you about? I'm not sure exactly how, but I get the feeling that it's about to be shaken."

Renewed tension shot through Bashir's already aching muscles. "Why? What do you think will happen?"

"I don't know," whispered Nalor, intensity burning behind his dark eyes. "I'll do what I can to stop it. But I'm far from sure that I can make any real difference. Just… If anything does happen… Just, stay alert. Won't you?"

He shook his head again. "I have to go," he asserted, rubbing one side of his scalp in a gesture oddly reminiscent of Captain Benjamin Sisko. And now he glanced furtively behind him. "You ought to be warning those friends of yours."

Bashir nodded, unsure of whether the older man had even noticed. Nalor had already turned to hurry away. And just as suddenly, he was running himself, half sliding down the treacherous slope with his pulse throbbing painfully in his ears. Dodging every tree and protruding tussock, battling an urge to stop and choke as his lungs begged for relief from the cold evening air.

But all the while, his thoughts alone were enough to make the ache in his head nearly double in strength. What chance could he have to warn anyone, with so little idea of what he was alerting them against?

* * *

"It's happening again," shouted a thin-faced farmer with hair shaved close around his ears. Nalor listened, scanning the cluster of neighbours with increasing anxiety. But he did not speak. Not yet.

_Stay quiet_, he thought. _Just for now. Take a moment to find out what you're up against_.

"We can't be sure of that," insisted another, a woman this time. She glanced around at all their faces. "It _was _just this one time, after all…"

"But that's just the beginning, isn't it?" The first speaker argued. "That's how it starts. One incident today. Another tomorrow, and the next thing you know, it's a regular sight - spoonheads beating Bajorans. And worse, they're with the Dominion as well. I promise you, this is just the start. And what about those in the Capitol? They're all too busy sitting around and blathering on about treaties and concessions. There has to be a point where we draw the line. If we wait until we're certain, by then it may be too late."

"Which is why I don't intend to."

They all turned towards the door. None had seen Bula Johl enter, despite his broad frame now blocking their only way out.

"Amon Perel had cousins in this valley," he shouted above an escalating chorus of agreement. "Maybe he hasn't lived here since Independence, but he is no less one of us for that. Always has been."

"Not like those others."

Johl nodded in response to the continued noisy cries.

"That place on the hill should've been torn down years ago," he told them. "Just having it there dishonours the memory of every Bajoran whose life was taken. All those whose lives were… _violated _by the Occupation."

He choked a little on the last heartfelt words, as though regurgitating sharp, sticky thorns. But he quickly recovered. "All the ones who died. It's about time we did something about that, don't you think?"

"Just what do you think you're going to do?" Nalor demanded of him, unable to stay silent for any longer. Bula Johl surged forward until their chests almost touched.

"_What_ did you say?"

Johl was far taller, having to bend his head to look the other man in the eye, but Nalor was not so easily intimidated.

His own ferocious eyes glared confidently into those of his adversary. His voice started loud, but continued its steady rise in volume. "You know as well as I do, I can't go along with whatever madness you're planning. All I can say is, Stop. Now. Before it turns into something you regret."

A wild, cackling laugh from Bula Johl sent a chill all the way down Nalor's spine. "Come on, Nalor,". he half pleaded, half mocked. And then his voice dropped suddenly. It was hoarse. Chilling. "For old time's sake. Let's fry us some spoonheads."

"Bula, don't be a fool…"

"Oh, now I'm a _fool_, am I?" Johl cut him short - a hot, enraged shout which ended somewhere close to a scream. "Was it foolishness that broke my father's back, and left him bleeding in the dust? Did foolishness beat him to the point where he could barely walk for months after? You stood with him, Nalor. You spoke with him - I know. But you never heard how he cried at night, and you never saw those times when it was all we could do to convince him that he _wasn__'__t_ being chased any more, and that he _would_ live to see another dawn. No mistakes, Nalor. They are the enemy. And anyone who sides with them is a… a… _traitor_."

"Bula, I don't want to fight you…"

"Well that's a shame," retorted Johl. "But thankfully it's _not my problem_."

Nalor dodged the tightly clenched fist that swung his way, rendering his opponent slightly off balance. "You don't want to do this," he pleaded to the watching crowd.

Johl had righted himself after a few unsteady steps. "They're not stupid, Nalor," he growled.

The shorter man turned towards him. "Please, be reasonable. Torem wouldn't have wanted this. Whatever you're planning, it dishonours his memory."

"Don't you talk to _me_ about my father's memory!" Johl's eyes burned with murderous rage. People scurried away as he surged forward, allowing himself to overbalance and forcing his neighbour into the opposite wall.

"Johl!" gasped Nalor. His back and shoulders took the full impact, and there was barely breath for him to form a sound. Hands around his opponent's neck, the larger man forced him first to one side and then to the other, and fell, pinning the other man to the floor.

People gasped, watching in wide-eyed horror to see one neighbour defeated - sore and bruised, fighting to force the unyielding hands away from just beneath his chin. With a soft derisive snort, Bula Johl released his hold and stumbled backwards to his feet. Nalor rolled immediately to one side, wheezing, choking, swallowing a sudden burn at the very back of his throat.

"Pathetic," Johl snarled, looking down at his father's old friend. He glanced at two of his comrades before waving a dismissive arm. "Bind his hands. I know a good out of the way place to keep this one. We can deal with _him_ come morning."


	9. Inferno

Teyanha ran towards him at full speed, mouth open in a wide, ecstatic grin. Ni-ni's limbs swung wildly with every step. "I did a picture," she announced. "Vali found a whole bunch of _really_ weird flowers on the track by the woods, and I made a picture of them all."

She tugged at the young man's hand. "Come see."

Bashir's entire body still cried out for respite. He sat down heavily at the edge of the front stairs, and swallowed back a fiery pain inside his chest, briefly wondering when he could have become so unfit. But he pushed the thought aside. Now was not the time.

"That's great, Teyanha," he panted. "Show it to me later, okay?" Another swallow. "Right now I have to find Jaliya."

The girl studied his expression, with no remaining trace of her former exuberance. Her own subtle brow ridges now gathered themselves into a quiet, pensive frown. "We have to get inside again?"

Julian stared.

But then she nodded with the exaggerated severity of a child on a mission. "I'll find her for you."

Dodging over a small rise that marked the outer boundary of her home, she bounded inside. Her high-pitched calls were quick to reach Julian's ears, long after the front door had slid to a close behind her. Bashir cast an anxious glance around him, but the surrounding trees afforded no sign that anything at all was untoward.

_It's quiet_, he thought. _Maybe even_ too _quiet_…

The flutter of a bird launching noisily away from the hard-leafed treetops prompted him to duck with a sudden, startled grimace. Heart racing faster than it had when he'd still been running, he cursed his bout of sudden paranoia. _You__'__ll know when something starts, whatever that might be_, he scolded himself. _Keep your nerve_.

He turned his attention back to the Centre's interior, to a continuous stream of protests from within. It may even have caused him to smile, in better circumstances. "I've already said, Teyanha, just _tell_ me what you want. You know I don't have time for…"

Emerging again through the front exit, his messenger's face bore the determination of a razor-hawk, lips pressed together, large blue eyes gleaming with a silent, ferocious scowl. And one of her hands was tightly locked around the slender wrist of a bewildered, still protesting Jaliya Tal.

"Sorry." Bashir stumbled to his feet. Jaliya's objections stopped abruptly as she grasped his hand and helped to haul him up the rest of the way. He was sweating, she was quick to note. Light reflected chill-white from the beaded moisture above his brow. And he'd picked up a cough that was eerily similar to how she'd imagined the giant from his story might have sounded.

"Must be from hurrying all that way." He gasped a little in answer to the quiet concern in Jaliya's eyes. "No time to explain in detail, but we have to get everyone inside. I ran into Nalor, not far from here. He told me… Not much, actually. Just whatever's been starting around this valley, it's almost certain to happen tonight."

Bashir wasn't at all sure whether to be relieved or disturbed by how efficiently Jaliya reacted to his warning. "Are they close?" she demanded of him. But he could only shake his head.

"I don't know. Haven't heard anything. And Nalor couldn't say much either. He's gone to try and stop them, but whether he has any chance of success…"

The woman's jaw tightened - enough to indicate exactly what she thought of Nalor's chances. She made no further comment as she searched for the scattered group, calling them to her and ushering them quickly inside. Several were soon clustered directly behind the door, round-eyed, shivering as they sensed the tension in the air, arms wrapped around themselves even though the evening was far from particularly cold.

Last to reach the safety of the crowd, Vali glanced behind her. "Someone's coming."

Julian was surprised that he had so far failed to hear their voices. But now that he listened, they were clear in the tranquil air, approaching relentlessly from the distance. _Here we go_, he thought. Clasping Vali's shoulders so suddenly that she flinched, he manoeuvred her back through the entrance, and only let go once he sensed Jaliya grab her by the hand.

"Where's Odal?" somebody cried.

Both Jaliya and Bashir glanced hurriedly around them before realising that whoever had spoken, they were horribly right. The youngest boy was nowhere to be seen.

"We were over by the stream," Lerin offered with barely a pause. "That's where I saw him. He didn't want to come back with me, so I…"

"…Left him there," Jaliya accused, arms folded. The thin-faced child's voice rose in protest.

"Not _my_ fault if he's gonna be that stubborn!"

Exchanging a horrified glance with Jaliya, Bashir turned back towards the approaching dusk outside. "Stay where you are," he told them all. But he was already hurrying away before he'd even finished what he'd meant to say.

* * *

A sharp pain at the back of Nalor's head spread quickly outwards as if someone was attempting to force sharp rocks through the blood of his skull. Leaning against what he hoped was a nearby wall, he waited for it to subside until it was closer to a tolerable threshold - and struggled to gather the fragments of his dim and shattered memories.

What he did recall was enough to make the pain return anew, accompanied by a flash of cold alarm. And he was just as suddenly awake - agonisingly so - enough to feel every thread of the tattered rope now chaffing against his wrists and ankles. He grimaced, surprised that the bonds had not yet rubbed him to the bone.

The rope had been tied around his hands, even before his neighbours transported him to this unfamiliar place. After that he must have hit his head, he guessed, when Johl and two other men tossed him roughly against the wall. He supposed the transporter had been a cunning enough idea. With no memory of covering the distance on foot, there was no guarantee that he would be able to orient himself enough to find a way out. But for now, if only he could rub the pain away.

His eyesight was useless in the non-existent light. But from his very first breath, the air bore a fetid, indoor stench. It made him want to retch, as though being rid of his supper would simultaneously expel this odour from his awareness. There was dampness all around him, and it took several more moments for a soft, slow rhythm to shape itself at the very edge of his hearing. Liquid dripped in the distance, the noise expanding in the instant he was aware, filling his already battered senses.

_It's exactly as Bashir described it_, he realised with a shock. He gasped aloud, and then cried out as the reaction brought him still more pain. With no way to ascertain exactly _how_ long he'd been indisposed, Nalor's recent knowledge came with a determined, anxious certainty. He had to escape. Find Bula Johl and all those others. Stop whatever madness they were giving in to before it should consume them all. He was far from sure that the disaster he so longed to prevent had not already happened, but he had to believe that there was still a difference to be made.

* * *

Odal's eyes glinted in semi-darkness as he jerked his head to discover what was causing the new approaching sound. Glancing warily in every direction, Bashir half slid down the leaf-strewn riverbank towards him, and was secretly glad of his own enhanced reflexes as he managed to skid to a hasty stop.

There were already lights flickering in the distance, coming closer with every passing second. Hurriedly, quietly, Julian beckoned.

"Odal." He spoke with some force, his voice deliberately hushed, and signalled again. "Come with me."

The boy froze, and Bashir felt the clutch of renewed anxiety.

"Quickly, Odal." There was a thin line to tread between urgency and reassurance - and angry voices were already shouting in the distance. A branch cracked, the sound of which finally jerked Odal free of his trance. He stumbled over the treacherous ground and his fingers locked with Bashir's open hand. It was the only cue either of them needed as, turning back up the slope, Julian tugged the frightened child along behind him.

He felt the movement, the smaller hand slip from his own. He had not seen the young boy stumble, but had heard that cry too often not to recognise the shout of sudden pain.

Odal stifled another cry as Bashir worked to loosen his arm from where it had snagged on the twisted fork of a tree. Even in the darkness he could clearly see where the youngster's left forearm was swollen and bruised.

The orange glow of torch light bobbed and shifted - getting closer, but still far enough in the distance to allow them a little time. Spinning around, he crouched beneath the same sharp branches. "Let me see."

Closing his eyes until tears leaked from the corners, Odal beat the ground with one foot as Julian's careful fingers tested for a break. There it was - a raised lump about halfway along where the bone had snapped at a shallow, obtuse angle. But his supply of medical tools remained upon the cabinet by his bed. And besides, there was no time for either of them to hesitate any longer.

"You're doing well, Odal." Bashir shaped his mouth into a smile of encouragement, genuinely impressed. One hand smoothed the boy's dark hair. "You've been so brave, but we have to get you inside. Can you keep going now - just a little further?"

Odal nodded, determination showing through the pain and distress in his eyes. He yelped sharply as Bashir lifted him in both strong arms, and ducked. A barely perceived rock flew past, close enough for him to feel the breath of displaced air. Shouts from behind them, another projectile, and he glanced around to see a row of angry shadows illuminated by the flames. _Close - too close_.

"Get in!" A voice reached him from the front entrance, rising frantically above all the other cries. "Hurry!"

"Jaliya!" shouted Bashir. Shielding Odal's small body with his own, he pushed the boy towards the door and stumbled immediately after him. One hand already hovered over the locking mechanism, which he slapped - _hard_ - and fell against the wall to cough away the breathlessness and exertion.

They were staring at him, everyone pale and open-mouthed, with round, tearful eyes. But just beyond the tightly packed group, his gaze immediately sought Odal. Arms around the young boy's shoulders, Jaliya was already leading him to the table.

"There you are." Still a little short of breath, Bashir crossed the floor and positioned himself in front of the boy. "Come on. We'll get you fixed up just like new."

For a moment, he lowered his head to shake away a passing giddy wave. He'd been a little off balance ever since they'd returned indoors. Fighting to regain control until the clouds subsided from his thoughts, he turned to the nearest twin. "Simi, can you find my medical bag?"

The girl nodded purposefully, and vanished into the back rooms.

As Bashir turned his attention back to Odal, Jaliya gathered the rest of the younger ones close together and directed them away from the front wall. "It's all right," she told them, even though her own face was as pale as theirs, and she was equally startled by the sounds coming from the outer wall. Whispering yet more fierce reassurances, she left them to join the pair at the table. Bashir's gaze locked with hers for just a moment, but Simi was already racing back with his medkit clasped in both white-knuckled hands.

"Thank you, Simi," he made sure to tell her. The girl resisted a little as she handed it to him, hands still half clenched even as she struggled to loosen her hold.

_Focus now, Julian. _He was still too aware of the crowd outside. But with that thought, worked hard to force every trace of anxiety from his eyes. "I'm going to need you to be brave for me again, Odal," he said, concentrating on the tearful boy in front of him. "Just for another moment."

Odal winced, and cried out sharply as Bashir's sure hands pressed his bone back into place. He clutched his arm, whimpering quietly but gave no further outward sign of hurt.

Grasping Odal's head in one hand, Jaliya leaned forward and gave the child a comforting kiss. "Will he be alright?" she asked. Tension showed behind her voice.

"He'll be scampering up the trees again before you know it," Bashir predicted.

"Just like you to go round giving them ideas." But before her companion could dream up an effective retort, Jaliya gasped, and flinched away from the escalating racket from outside.

The mounting shouts that had followed them all the way from the river were now less than two metres away, rising, angry, discordant - fighting for precedence until their chorus swelled to a constant, wordless cacophony.

Julian could not stop himself from casting his attention to the back of the room where, burying her face in Vali's shoulder, Teyanha had also begun to cry. The older girl worked hard to hush her fears, spreading a hand across the back of her dark auburn hair. The room was not at all well lit. The light outside was failing, but even then it was easy to see that Vali was every bit as frightened.

_It's a siege_, Bashir thought, although it was possible - for now - that the walls around them could make effective shields. But that didn't make them any less trapped. How long would they continue to limit themselves to throwing rocks and shouting? He knew as well as anyone present. It was far from wise, simply to believe that theirs was a permanent sanctuary.

* * *

Working their way systematically along the wall, Nalor's fingers soon discovered a sharp, protruding edge. He paused, attempting briefly to gain as much information as he was able to by touch alone. The blade had blunted somewhat with time, but was sufficiently keen - with enough hard work - to cut through his age-stiffened bonds. He wondered that Bula Johl had not thought to remove such an obvious escape tool. But still more careful searching revealed a jutting section of the lower wall, which nothing but the strongest force would have ever been able to extricate.

There was still a chance for Nalor to hope. His neighbours may have underestimated his determination. Or had they merely assumed that he would never be able to free himself in time? So far, he had found no sign that he was even being guarded. The very possibility brought another burst of impatience to the surface of his thoughts. Perhaps his earlier fears had been entirely correct. Perhaps he was too late after all.

_Again, the same doubts. The same uncertainty. Don't you see? Doubt is a luxury, Nalor. And this is no time to be indulging in luxuries._

_Whatever happens now_. He spared a moment for a barely hopeful prayer, and finally manoeuvred his hands free of the rope that bound them. Someone had to be listening, so why not the Prophets? He allowed himself no more than two seconds to flex the circulation back into his fingertips, and started on the similar bonds around his ankles. _Whatever happens, please. Don't let it be too late_.

* * *

_Bula Johl had been little more than ten, when he and his friends discovered what he later realised had been a tightly enclosed interrogation room. They'd crouched on a rise at the South-Eastern border of their valley - where the trees were pressed together in their struggle for light and the shadows were noticeably darker. But even here, the forest was not so thick that they couldn't peer through the leaves. It was enough for a vague, excitable thrill - to come so close to the Cardassian guards patrolling half way down the slope._

"_We shouldn't be here," whispered Devin Kintro, a thin, olive-skinned boy with unkempt, tawny hair and a permanent squint - as if even the cloudiest days were far too bright. The hair on his brows was so sparse that the skin around his eyes was all that he could use to indicate a frown. He glanced fretfully over his right-hand shoulder._

_Johl planted a rough fist upon his arm. "Shut up, won't you?"_

"_They'll catch us," hissed Kintro. Johl snorted._

"_They will if you don't stop your whining. Go on and run home like a baby if that's what you want. But we're staying right where we are."_

"_What you s'pose is _in_ that place?" he'd wondered aloud, turning back towards it. The unknown building had remained in his thoughts for many years afterward, long after even the Cardassians had left it to the mercy of the forest. As he wandered through abandoned corridors, listening to the beat of his shoes upon the smooth, hard floor, a smile crept wickedly up one side of his mouth._

"_You can use this." And he'd been just as pleased that there was no-one else around to hear him speak. "It's yours to do with as you like."_

"Finally," Johl whispered through clenched teeth. His thoughts had wandered, but never far. His companions were here on the strength of last minute decisions, momentary whims. Not one of them had really come prepared, and he was already too well aware that they were relying on him for strategy.

"They're not about to come out of there in a hurry." One of his neighbours stepped forward. The flame of her torch swayed before settling. "Isn't it time we tried _doing _something, or were you wanting us to stand around all night?"

Bula Johl was glad that at least one person had taken the time to plan, even if it had to have been himself. He'd had enough of throwing rocks about and painting meaningless words on the surface of the walls. After all, _his_ father had been the one who had died. And he'd made himself a promise that by morning, this place would no longer stand. The men in his family kept their promises.

"They need a bit of a nudge?" he reasoned. "No problem. I know just the way to smoke them out."

* * *

"Traitors!" came a voice from outside, followed by a chorus of renewed cries.

Jaliya tensed, but focused on brushing a strand of black hair from Odal's eyes. "Feeling better?"

Odal sniffed again. Still, at least he managed a faint smile of his own.

"We'll fix him up as good as new." Carefully supporting the youngster's arm, Bashir used his own free hand to fish out the cylindrical form of an osteo-regenerator.

"Go easy on that," he instructed his patient, wrapping a tight bandage around the newly mended injury. "At least for a few days." He took a moment to wipe a thin layer of sweat from his brow. Strange - he was not usually this flustered. But a sly thought occurred to him even then. _He's an eight year old boy. Do you really suppose he's about to take your advice on his own_?

_If we survive the night_. Irritably, he pushed aside the persistently unwelcome doubts.

"What now?" Jaliya was unable to stop herself from asking.

Noises were crossing the roof above them, and Bashir paused to follow the direction of her gaze. He sensed that his face was just as suddenly pale.

"Footsteps."

Stepping forward, Vali peered through the window. "They have fire," she reported.

"Come away from there," commanded Jaliya. She and Bashir quickly came together to take the place of the grey-faced teen.

And the girl had been right, Julian noted. He recalled having seen the same approaching the nearby stream - evening blues and greys peppered at several points by the sharp amber glow of torchlight.

People outside were no longer throwing rocks against the walls. But there was something else, which made hard, liquid sounds with every impact. Motioning for everyone to stay back, Julian leaned against the window's edge and peered over his shoulder.

"There's something going on out there," whispered Jaliya.

Bashir nodded. "I know."

He jumped back involuntarily at the sound of something pounding repeatedly against the wall. "They're trying to break the windows," he gasped before he even had a chance to realise that he was speaking aloud. But then he rushed to Jaliya's side, and shouted above the noise. "We have to put up barricades!"

"With what?" she demanded incredulously.

"Anything," insisted Julian, already pushing chairs against the wall. "Everything. Whatever you can find."

He pointed. "What about that table?"

Vali moved around to the other side. "It's stuck to the floor."

The lights outside were already brushing against cracks in the glass, so close that they even revealed the occasional passing outline of a humanoid face. A smell crept through several gaps in the wall. Some kind of incendiary material…

_And fire_.

"Get _back_!"

The sound was barely a whisper at first - a feathered cough, a spasm of air. Orange flame surged upwards, jaws agape as if to swallow all in its path. And before anyone - even Bashir - had a chance to react, a series of harsh, bone-piercing roars mingled with the terrified cries of children and turned each of them to constant, high-pitched screams.

Muscles reacting before there was even time to think, he shoved Jaliya into a corner and crouched there himself, curled into a tight ball with his back to the sudden combustion around them. He clasped the fair-haired Bajoran by the shoulders, gasped and shuddered, and noticed only then that more than half her braid had come loose around her pale, thin face.

Julian sat back, squinting now against the angry glow, and surveyed the room. "Is everyone all right?" he finally managed to wheeze - but only after swallowing back a sudden, bitter wave of bile.

Vali caught his questioning gaze, looked around, and nodded anxiously. Already she had several of her peers gathered to her side. Jaliya Tal brushed away his offer of a supporting hand. She was quick to round up Odal and the twins, but neither of them failed to notice the speed with which the flames swarmed up the wall.

"There's a back way," the young woman exclaimed between gasps, crouching low against the rapidly accumulating smoke. "We have to get out."

She ushered as many children as she could into the network of hidden rooms. "No!" cried Vali, suddenly resisting. "Not out there!" But Jaliya grabbed her arm and forced her through the door. With equal urgency, she turned towards Bashir. "Julian! Get Teyanha."

The girl stood alone with arms wrapped around each other - quaking, wailing, terror set like a mask behind her eyes. One sleeve pressed against his nose, Bashir raced towards her, and gathered her to sit against his hip. The fire was hot around them, and angry shouts still filled the air. And he could not say with any certainty that their escape would not lead them directly to the waiting mob?

He was staggering, smoke already thick across his vision, trembling almost as badly as the child now in his arms. _Everyone else is moving so fast_. The thought came unbidden, unwelcomed, and barely acknowledged. He could see Jaliya already many steps ahead of him. _Why_?

"Ni-ni." With a sudden cry, Teyanha struggled to free herself from Bashir's restraining grasp.

Julian looked instantly, instinctively, behind him. _No. No - we can__'__t. There__ isn't__ time_. Overheated, damaged glass was already forcing itself in shards away from the window frame where, limp and immobile, directly below the sill, lay the prostrate form of the young girl's doll.

Jaliya's shadow turned, and shouted something that fell too short of his ears. Still struggling to take a breath, Julian shook his head in a weak attempt to dislodge the constant heat. But why was his body already so heavy? Could Bajor's gravity really have doubled in a single evening? And there was something he had to be doing. Wasn't there? If only he could remember…

"Ni-ni!" Another shout. Taking advantage of the gap in concentration, she wriggled from his arms. Bashir twisted around to catch her and stumbled forward, just as suddenly awake. But he was slow. _Too _slow. If only his arms could stretch out like a changeling's.

Something landed at the youngster's feet, thrown in a steep arc through the tattered fragments of window. The girl spared it hardly a glance, and bent forward instead to lift her doll.

"Teyanha! No!"

As suddenly as he had cried out, Bashir was on his back. Still surrounded by the cage of flame, struggling to gather what he could of his own scattered memories.

An explosive boom. Deep inside his ears. It had pushed him backwards - hard - against the floor. From nearby came another, of tearing, twisting foundations. And from outside, the sound of voices.

_Cheering._

His throat was painfully dry, and all his joints ached as though some blunt utensil was working to pry them apart. Already his body was hot beyond what was natural - but unable even to sweat in the dry, overheated air. A low, agonised groan escaped his lips as, fighting to hold back each flash of pain, he forced himself to roll one side and cough away whatever shock had pounded so abruptly against his lungs.

_A concussive explosion device_. A bomb. They were designed to be quiet, stealthy, especially meant for underground operations, with their effects rarely travelling beyond a two or three metre radius. But at a strong enough setting, they could just as easily shatter walls. Still gasping, he peered through the smoke in front of him.

_Teyanha._

* * *

It was a short, enclosed passage, snaking around one side of the building until it finally ended at a half concealed door - a wide enough back exit for someone little bigger than Jaliya to sidestep through. It was poorly lit, with several indistinct shadows cast near black across its walls. But the floor was smooth, with no noticeable incline, and she knew that almost all her young charges had played in this corridor at one time or another, even when she told them not to.

_Thank the Prophets for disobedient children_. She wondered if this was what that bony old man from her childhood had meant when he spoke of lucky ironies. They would already know the layout of the passage, some even better than Jaliya herself, and once closed off, it would make for a decent haven against the heat and the smoke. At least long enough to attempt an escape.

Still far from perfect. But at that moment, it was the best chance they had.

She counted nine children as she hurried them to safety, and paused to rub some stinging ash from just below her eyes. _Good_, she told herself. _That__'__s nearly everyone_. All the others were safely inside, and Julian would doubtless be close behind them with Teyanha.

"Quickly, now." Jaliya's voice was already patchy and dry. Even the metal of her earring was starting to feel uncomfortably hot. She risked a brief glance over her shoulder.

…And barely suppressed a curse that would have set her mother's ears on fire. Where _were_ they?

"Vali." Crouching by the entrance Jaliya took the teenager by the hand. Even now she sensed the tension in Vali's half-closed fist.

Her voice struggled to surface from a blanket of oppressive heat. "I need you to take the others…"

"But…" Vali shook her head, a glint of flame reflecting from her tears. "I can't. Jaliya - I _can__'__t_."

"You have to." Jaliya kept her words as firm as she could make them.

"I _can__'__t_…"

And as if by instinct, Jaliya's fingers were tightly wrapped around the young girl's ear - silencing her in a moment. She leant in close until their foreheads touched, and closed her eyes. "I know I ask a lot of you, Vali. And I promise - I _promise _- I'll make up for it later. But this is too important. Just remember, whatever happens, I'll always be so proud of you. I'm proud of you all." Pulling away, she wiped a tear across Vali's cheeks with the thumb of one hand. "I can count on you, can't I?"

No-one said anything, but neither did they protest.

Gentle now, but determined, she pushed the girl forward. "Now go. Quickly. And don't look back, understand? I'll see you soon."

Soon… _Keros said the same thing, didn't he_? But now, forcing away all memory of unfulfilled promises, Jaliya withdrew before chancing any further delays. She trusted Vali. The girl would see this mismatched little group to safety - of that she was as certain as she felt she had any right to be.

* * *

Bashir frowned through a pulsing, stabbing headache, and hauled himself up onto hands and knees. Choking desperately, panting as if he'd swallowed day-old ash, he shook away what he could of the pressure behind his eyes, and dizzily hauled his body forward.

He knelt at Teyanha's side, in almost exactly the place where the girl lay, broken, on the floor, and pushed the same churning, queasy feeling all the way down into his gut. Still he coughed, so hard that he almost retched. And the quietly nauseous feeling remained, slick and restless, shifting as though in the grip of an uneasy half sleep.

_Not important._

Marvelling at just how light she was, he shifted Teyanha onto her back and quickly located the correct position above her tiny chest. Even the slight, regular flutter of her pulse was nowhere to be found.

_One hand for a child. Slightly faster compressions than he would have used for someone fully grown. But keep it steady. Keep the rhythm._

Fire leapt inwards from every wall, hot and mocking. Reaching as though to grab him with its luminescent fingers. He wiped the sweat from his eyes, and began. Heat licked his hair, clothes, skin. And no place remained free of solid grey smoke. _Not important_.

He felt it congeal at the depths of his lungs. He was dizzy, near blind at the edges. Shouting continued outside, with the occasional crash of stone on stone. Too many voices to distinguish any words. But Teyanha's ribs buckled slightly under his weight. Her face was clear, even as it shifted and blurred like light through water.

Another voice came to him, closer than the outsiders'. Calling his name…

"Get out of here!" he sensed that he was saying. _Have to keep the rhythm. One. Two. Three_…

"She's dead, Julian." The same whispered voice again, still choking, but through a greater barrier now than smoke.

"No." A hand clasped him by the arm. He shrugged it away.

_Not another. Not this time. Keep the rhythm, damn you_.

Head lowered, he battled for air no longer in the room around him-- Shuddering, lurching forward as though from a physical blow…

_Not this child!_

* * *

It was more than the surrounding heat that threatened to rob Jaliya of her voice.

_The strangely exotic waif had always been small for her age, with eyes that sparkled as she smiled. Her mother had struggled without success to love her for three whole years, before pushing her into Jaliya's arms and escaping from the unwanted face that even then might have forced her to look back, or possibly even say goodbye. But those who looked far enough beneath the surface to find the peculiar little spirit within - those people had never been able to resist the instant claim she held within their hearts._

From a distance the pair were shadows, as if they'd been fashioned by the smoke around them. Tears stung her, more painful even than the hottest glowing sparks. But Jaliya staggered to their side, dizzy but determined, and reached for the young man's forearm.

She supposed she must have said something - although with the aridity in her throat and chest, she was hardly certain that the words had come from her at all. Tightening her grip, she leaned in closer.

"She's dead, Julian."

Was that why it had felt so distant the first time she'd spoken? After all, hearing them herself would give her no choice but to believe the words.

_We have to get out_. Every breath was a gasp, and the words - those words she'd said with her own voice, her own lips - continued to echo painfully in her memory. _Please, Julian. _Please_… Can't you listen_?

_No time_. She tried a gentle but persistent tug upon his arm.

"Get out!" It was little more than a sharp, inhuman hiss. Eyes tinged with the colour of dry rust, Bashir turned to glare behind him. His face scared her. More than the noise. More than the fire. More even than the burning pain she felt inside. His voice burned more intensely than all of them beneath Jaliya's skin.

"I'm not going anywhere," she forced a growl through half-clenched teeth. "Not unless you come with me."

He paused for barely a moment. "Fine." But once again his back was turned. Aimlessly, he waved an arm as if to brush her to one side. "_Go_."

With his promise to follow still fresh in her ears, Jaliya turned to crawl away.

Walls creaked ominously, drowning out the voices of the mob outside. Or perhaps they were the ones who had stopped making noise. She pushed her way forward through the treacherous maze - never entirely sure of how much distance she had covered, although strangely astonished that she had made it as far as she had. Every smell around her now stabbed like hot iron. There had to be a limit to what her agonised, exhausted muscles could handle, and she was certain she ought to have reached it by now.

_Vali's flowers would burn. Teyanha's pictures would burn. Ni-ni would burn, and even Teyanha_… Stop_ it! _Light swimming and shifting through layers of salt water, she covered her mouth and nose with one hand, and began a determined, three limbed crawl towards the path of escape.

The floor was hot against her hands. But at least now they could follow the children out to safety - if indeed there was safety to be found. And it was up to her to keep on going. After all, the Human Bashir did not know the way.

She coughed again, louder this time, and paused to glance briefly over her shoulder. For the second time that night, a shock ran through her, now even more powerful than the heat. "Julian…"

Jaliya's voice refused to emerge. Smoke blocked her vision, flames bulging and shifting like the angry monsters that had come to haunt the nightmares of her childhood. Beams collapsed with long, wrenching sounds, every one of which filled the surrounding night.

"Julian!" she gasped although she'd wanted to scream. She could only stare as glowing firefly sparks rose upwards from the ruins. _Please. Not him too_. And yet, through the ever thickening, deepening haze, she could not even discern the outline of his shadow.

* * *

The girl dashed blindly towards him, blacker than the surrounding gloom, teeth and eyes intensely white against a shallow layer of soot upon her skin. Stepping across her path, Nalor caught her in his arms.

She resisted, struggling, snarling, baring her teeth like some cornered feral beast.

"It's all right," Nalor hastened to reassure her as she fought to escape with a strength borne of desperation. "It's all right. I'm on your side."

She beat and kicked and opened her mouth as if to scream. "I'm on your side," Nalor repeated, far more urgently this time. He held her to him, listening to every gasping breath, every heaving shudder of her back and shoulders.

_Johl_, he demanded of the darkness. _What have you done_?

_Even when the orange light was no more than a distantly twinkling speck, it was sharp and clear in what had otherwise been the blackest night in many months. Still with a long way to go, struggling to see the ground in front of him, Nalor's eyes had been drawn to it in an instant, and the fire beckoned to him - swelling, taunting, boding ill._

_Treacherous branches scratched his face and arms, and the heat and stench were close enough to churn his stomach. He dodged where he could. The unexpected, inanimate shadows tore his skin even then, but he refused to allow anything to stop his progress along the narrow paths._

_There was a burst of flame, and a crash that Nalor felt in his bones long before he realised that there had been any sound. He ducked, wrapping protective arms about his head. And then his eyes found a lone shadow running through the trees - small, silent and purposeful. He hardly dared to believe what he'd seen, but still he had felt his hope return anew. Taking advantage of a fresh shock of energy, he surged forward to intercept this fast-moving shade._

The girl sank into Nalor's arms, fists tightly clenched, and sobbing like she would never stop. He did not take long to see that there were others, watching in a ragged line at the very edge of the scene. All were younger than this girl, and all of them stared with round, bright eyes. The oldest must have chosen to take on the role of scout, Nalor guessed as he swept his gaze over the tiny group. _So. She's trying to get them to safety_. But if the children really were alone, then where…?

_Don't think about that_. _Not now_. But anger and self-recrimination was far too quick to return, and far too difficult to set aside. He kept his focus on the girl, wrapping his arms around her, whispering muted comforts in her ear. "It's all right. You're safe with me."

Still tense, he noted, sensing that his strong embrace was all that kept her on her feet. But she seemed to relax, pressing her face against his chest and curling her arms up tightly around it. He held to her, swore that his promises of sanctuary would hold true. She felt so little different to his adolescent nieces at that age. And some of the other children were also edging timidly towards him.

"Shh, now. Shh…" Time to lead them away from the blaze. Gently, he stroked the girl's smooth, dark hair, lifted her in his arms, and carried her to the relative security of darkness. "You're safe now. I'm on your side."

* * *

Blood trickled from inside Teyanha's ear, and ran in a slender line from her nose to the corner of her mouth. Her eyes were open, lifeless and staring. More like a grotesque parody of the child Bashir knew than anything she had ever been. Cold anger flooded his body. He was dizzy with it. Or was that the fire? He coughed uselessly, smoke solidifying inside him. _Not important_.

And then he was rising to his feet, staggering forward on legs like wet pasta. He lifted the child in his arms. She was limp, slightly heavy - might have been a sack of grain but for the touch of skin against his fingertips. Vision blurring. Tears? Smoke? The beams crashed all around him. He reached forward and screamed at the pain of scorching metal against his hands. But the rage was energy. This rage was life. He forced the front door to open enough for him to step outside and face the jeering crowd.

Fire burned in his eyes as surely as it had captured the building behind him. Outside, he heard nothing. The line of people was as silent as if the sky had fallen down upon their heads. The last projectile crashed impotently against the shell of a front wall, and the sound it made echoed, settled, and burned in his thoughts long after it was no longer reaching his ears.

_Shapes and colours - and the glow of lighted flames_. Save for the occasional too-quiet gasp, they might as well not even have been there. But Julian could sense the crowd's presence as surely as if the rocks and flames were still falling at his feet. Tears of fury stung his eyes, and anger ran like ice through his blood - so cold that he no longer even sensed the heat of the fire.

Somebody was at his side, hands grasping, trying to remove the dead child from across his arms. _No_. He tensed, and held on still tighter. _You__'__re not taking her as well_.

But they persisted, even as the light of their torches continued to shift and spin. There were faces in the flame, mocking, demonic, hollow - and bodies dancing to a tune far beyond his power to hear. But perhaps he wasn't trying hard enough. Perhaps he did hear it, a subtle rhythm, pulsing behind the shroud that fell across his vision.

_Listen. They're calling… They're calling to us._

His legs folded beneath him. Arms caught him before he fell. They were cold, harsh. And he could no longer resist the pull of sharp, insistent hands - reaching forward to take the child away.

_Teyanha. She has a name._

They were taking her away from him.


	10. Afterthought

_"__Move back. Out of the way.__"__ A pause. __"__Sir? Can you hear me? Can you tell me your name? Don't worry now - just lie still. We__'__ll get you to hospital. You__'__re going to be fine.__"_

Nobody's going to die, Yana…

I'll look after the children. I promise…

But the truth is, I'm a fraud…

* * *

_Around him were walls. Textured, narrow, and instantly familiar in multiple shades of grey and brown. He turned to face the medicine cabinet, with its even rows of variegated bottles. Deep Space Nine's Infirmary. Running a careful hand over the shelf, Julian sighed. He was back. He was a doctor again - the thick-shouldered Starfleet uniform snug around his chest. Then what about the past two months? Had it really all been just a dream?_

"_No," said a voice from behind him, answering before he had found the time to ask aloud._

_He whirled towards the door, and saw a tall man enter from the Promenade. Dark-haired, just subtly tanned… whose steady brown eyes stared calmly into his own. The newcomer held both hands clasped in front of him. His hair, although slightly ruffled, was far from unkempt. And a desert red gown reached all the way from his shoulders to his ankles. _

"_Vedek Bareil? But I thought you were…"_

"_Dead? I am. So tell me, Doctor - which of us is dreaming and which one is the dream?"_

_Another hand reached up from somewhere unseen, and clasped the upper, cartilaginous section of the young man's left ear. He remembered being told by an eager classmate - at some point in his medical student days - that the level of stimulation to the pain receptors was not that far from having one's teeth drilled. Julian had heard the captain describe how it felt, but had not experienced it for himself. Not until he had finally journeyed down to the planet's surface._

_He closed his eyes, resisting the sharp pressure as it stabbed against his nerves. It hurt, far more than it possibly should have done. Even with the reminder, he could not stop himself from trying to flinch away._

"_Please," he whispered hoarsely. "Let go."_

_Kai Opaka stood in front of him, her own troubled face studying his, in all its detail. A quietly serene smile crept steadily across her face. But she did not release him - not yet. With her other hand, she grabbed his wrist, and placed something small and round into his palm. Behind her, Bareil still watched. "You first."_

_Finally, the pressure was released. The pain faded to a tolerable ache, and Julian was alone. He opened his hand to see what she had given to him._

Beans?

"_To be precise, magic beans," said another voice at his back. Mahton stood by one of the sloping biobeds, surrounded by three dark children._

_Julian stepped backwards, shaking his head. "What?"_

_But instead of offering an answer, the tall Bajoran gazed upwards, allowing the contours of his Adam's Apple to show through the skin of his throat. There were voices, high above him. _But there shouldn't be any sound coming from above the station_, Julian thought distractedly. _No sound in a vacuum_. But even so, he was sure he'd heard the distant rumble of giants…_

_And just as suddenly, there was a distinct smell on the breeze - somewhere part way between aniseed and peppermint, but at the same time slightly more bitter than either. He was standing on a hill in the middle of a forest. Dry leaves covered the path at his feet, and somewhere nearby, he could hear the rush of a clear, flowing river. Mahton, the children, the Infirmary… All were gone._

"_Where am I?"_

"_Tasmania," said a voice. "Don't tell me you didn't guess?"_

_He turned, and frowned at the new figure now standing before him. "How could I? I've never been there."_

"_Then you don't know what you're missing. Do you? New Boy."_

_Dark eyes peered from under the rim of a broad, leather hat. The man stepped forward. Stringy brown hair was arranged to hang loosely over his ears. "Surprised to see me, are you? Don't see why - this was never _my _dream."_

"_But why would you be here? That was all too long ago."_

"_Two years," B.C. confirmed. "Maybe three. Or over three hundred, depending on your point of view."_

"_Wait a minute. How could you know that? I never said…"_

_The other man leant back against one of the nearest paperbarks, and raised his eyebrows as though anticipating the mental process of a particularly slow young child. And even as he stumbled towards a kind of conclusion, Julian decided that it didn't really matter. One way or another, his companion was there, when neither of them should have met at all._

"_I'm a Ghost," B.C. continued his challenge. "And what is a Ghost who never once comes back to haunt the living?"_

_He pushed himself away from the tree, and glanced at the scenery around him, mouth slightly open as if to catch the wind. "Not so bad, dying," he muttered. "If that's all I had to do to get myself here, then we really ought to do this much more often."_

"_You can't be serious."_

_Tilting his head back just a little further, Bashir's present company stared at him with level dark eyes. "Why not?"_

_Julian stepped backwards over the dry leaves, shaking his head. "You're insane."_

"_You were there," insisted B.C. "Is your own insanity really that different?"_

"_We were trying to save lives. There was the future to protect…"_

"_There always is, isn't there?" came the retort. "You have your future. We had our future. Even those people with their torches and their bombs. If you pressed them hard enough - I mean _really_ pressed them - don't you think they would tell you exactly the same?"_

_Julian sensed his voice rising beyond his ability to control it. "How does murdering _children_…?"_

"_You'd be surprised."_

"_No." His chest was tight. Painfully so. Eyes lukewarm with a film of tears. "This _is_ different..."_

"_How?"_

"_Humanity has evolved," insisted Bashir. It was what the most important people in his life had always told him, since the moment he'd been old enough to understand - and probably long before. But even as it left him, the doctrine sounded empty. Impotent. As if he was merely producing sound, not words._

_B.C. laughed, although there was little happiness in the sound. "And your friends with the noses? They haven't, is that it?"_

"_I never said that…"_

"_And what about us? Do you really believe we were all that mindless? Or wasn't that you I saw with a rifle in your hands?"_

_Anger was starting to boil inside him. The rage of uncertainty, he realised, but failed to prevent it. "Maybe it was," he said, keeping his voice low. "But I would never… Not like that."_

"_Never?" B.C. raised one challenging eyebrow. "Ever?"_

_An explosion rocked the scene around him, and as suddenly as it appeared, the forest was shattered. Flames billowed, spewing dark smoke into the void of space. Bashir ducked away from the harsh, flashing lights. But his was not the ship being cut through by the weapons of their enemy._

"_Your future, Doctor."_

It's a dream, _he struggled to remind himself. But he could think of few instances where his dreams had been so real, and those he did recall would have been better off forgotten._

"_Welcome to the battle zone."_

_The deck-plates of the unfamiliar starship were solid beneath his feet, and its even pressure was exactly as he imagined a thinly carpeted floor would feel. The cool off-white of the bulkheads was a little too bright against his eyes, interrupted on each side by a double row of dark, slanted windows._

_He'd been in places like this before. It was not unlike the ship that had first delivered him and Jadzia to their new assignment on Deep Space Nine. Five years ago, he'd been far more interested in casting open glances at Dax's lovely, pearl-white face. But in the still-clear memories he held of this open room, the outside view had certainly been far more peaceful than it was right now._

_Lasers continued to stream from both conflicting fleets. The unbroken red streak of plasma charges; the sporadic flash of photon torpedos… Every one of these lights was vivid enough to dim the stars behind them._

"_Your training is inadequate." This was a clear baritone, with an elusively rumbling timbre just below the surface. "They teach you to feel compassion, but not to see that death is nothing more complicated than the inevitable end of life. If you do not fear it, why does it haunt you?"_

"_I do fear it," he told Garan'agar, turning to look into the Jem'Hadar's staring blue-grey eyes. "But I dedicated myself to the preservation of life. I made a vow."_

"_Why?"_

"_Because…" He paused, already faltering in his search for lost words. "Because it's all we have."_

_Forcing each breath, noticing the moisture return to his eyes, he gazed out at the destruction around him. "But not this. This is wrong."_

"_This is victory," Goran'agar insisted. "And victory is life."_

"_And life--" Bashir shuddered at the pressure of a heavy Cardassian arm about his shoulders. Tain was smiling at him, and he had not even detected the larger man's approach. "…Is nothing but dust."_

_Both grey-faced companions looked beyond him, to the darkness of space beyond. The children from his dreams had returned. They huddled together by the wall, watching with their hollow eyes._

_One of the lasers surged towards them, so fast that he barely perceived its advance. Just as suddenly, all he saw was flame. It exploded outwards like a vengeful Hell-demon. Hungry, ravenous… Opening its jaws and swallowing everything in its path. Julian felt the heat on his skin. Hair burning with a painful stench as the fire passed down through dermal tissue, slicing all the way to fat and muscle underneath._

_He screamed._

* * *

It was a small room. Dimly lit, with a cool, sterile scent all around.

And yet…

He shuddered, gasped, fought with all the strength still in him to free himself from the pressure of enfolding arms. It was not enough. He fell back, helpless to cry out and give some voice to the sudden, consuming terror. But somebody held him - stopped him from falling all the way.

Whoever it was did not let go. Rocking him slowly like a frightened child. Holding him like he'd held Teyanha… Hands. Strong. Soothing and warm. And there was that voice, close but simultaneously far away. Whispering, _Hush_.

_Wet, burning. But cold at the same time. _Sweat was thick upon his brow, and strands of wet hair stuck fast to his skin. A wave of nausea forced its way upwards, ending in a weak and wordless protest - a desperate cry for release that tapered away to a barely discernable moan.

There may have been another sound. A brief, quiet hiss, and he was welcomed back into the dark embrace of sleep.

* * *

__

"_I'm scared."_

_A distant, round-eyed figure waited by the track, hands wrapped tightly across her elbows. Trees painted shades across her face and shoulders. But she did not go to him. "Where's Ni-ni?"_

"_I don't know." Tears stung his eyes, so that he barely found the voice to reply._

_He reached out to where Teyanha was standing. "Come on. Come with me - I'll take you back."_

_But instead of approaching, the child shook her head. "Where's Ni-ni?" she whimpered. "I can't sleep without her."_

"_Teyanha, I'm sorry. I never brought her with me…"_

"_But you did." She pointed. "Look."_

_He looked, and discovered that both his hands were clasped around the loose-limbed, slightly ragged doll. _Where did that come from_…?_

"_From you," whispered another voice. Startled, he looked around in every direction, but was entirely unable to pinpoint its source._

_Billowing upwards in a solid, brown-grey storm, dust rose high above his head. With a blind attempt to peer beyond it, Julian opened his mouth to call. But the cloud was thick in his throat and eyes. No sound could struggle through such a sticky, overheated coat of ash._

_This dust was fresh - still hot. It burned inside his hollow lungs, so viscous and pervasive that he could barely take a breath. Teyanha's arms were tight around him. He held her tighter. _Tighter_, until she began to squirm and he heard her pleading close to his ear._

"_Let go."_

No_, he thought. _Not this time.

_Through half closed eyes, he finally saw a patch of blue beyond the featureless grey - someplace where the clouds had thinned. A young man waiting by the clearing turned his back to walk away._

"_Wait!" Julian tried to shout, but his words were no more than a near-silent wheeze. He stumbled forward, following the colour as his only reference. "Mahton. Wait."_

_They stood on the edge of a precipice, dry air hot upon their skin, gazing upon a constant tawny-yellow punctuated only by hollow ruins. "What do you want from me?" he asked Ekoria, and wondered distantly if she'd always been standing at his side. Her cheeks were smooth, untouched by the blight that had claimed her in the seconds after her son was born. Her hand reached up to brush lightly against one side of his face, and Julian gasped at the feathery touch. _

"_We want you to let us go."_

_They were all together now, watching in a line before the broad-based white of the Centre walls. Each was cast dark as a shadow. But even as a series of indistinct shapes, their faces were imprinted on his memory as surely as those angry flames charred the walls behind them._

_He looked down at the touch of five smaller fingers wrapping as far as they could around his own. Lightly and affectionately, he squeezed Teyanha's hand. And she smiled, gazing up at him with trusting blue eyes. _

_One undersized silhouette stepped away from the crowd. The Invernian girl cut a steady path toward them. She was the first - the earliest of all these shadowed spectres. They had been children, Julian recalled, trapped in the same dark shelter while colourful storms raged only metres away like warring gods. And she'd died in the night, because a ten year old boy had not known how to cure her._

_He'd never even thought to learn her name._

_With an encouraging smile, she held out her hand to the half-Cardassian child. "It's not so bad, really," she promised. Her voice was soft - clear and assured._

_Teyanha looked into Julian's eyes. Her own face simultaneously questioned and pleaded. Aching with the pressure of unshed tears, Julian gently placed the doll into her hands. Ni-ni shifted as though dancing happily at their reunion._

"_Go on," whispered Julian. "You'll be all right."_

_Tension stabbed into every muscle. He fell to his knees, hunched as though with a powerful weight. But the pain of it was fading, leaving him as brittle as the dry, coiled shell of a fallen leaf. _

_As if from nowhere, a pair of spidery arms had clasped themselves around his neck. Exhausted and tearful, barely able to raise his head, he found himself looking into Teyanha's clear blue eyes. Seeing that he had finally glanced her way, she leaned forward to kiss him lightly on the cheek, and rested her head for just a moment on his shoulder._

"_Bye." Even as her childish embrace was slipping away, she waved forlornly with one tiny hand. Her other held to that of the Invernian. Side by side, gradually fading into the distance, they turned and walked to where the others still waited._

"Good bye." A single warm tear escaped from Julian's eye, and rolled slowly back into his hairline.

* * *

Years ago, it would have been the song of birds that signalled the early waking hours. On this day, it was the soft, melodious, and constant trill of a nearby computer. And yet even that unanticipated thought had amplified the ache behind his eyes, enough to make him wince.

The next thing he sensed was the air. It was warm, slightly heavy, with a weight that soon spread to his chest and limbs. Julian's lungs burned as if he had never escaped that suffocating blaze. But he forced several deep breaths against the sudden, overwhelming dizziness. His eyes were still dry - stiff, swollen lids aching even worse than his head, and watered uncomfortably as he focused on his efforts to force them open.

Someone was there, shifting at the edge of his vision - until he turned his head just slightly in the stranger's direction. Not anyone he knew, but he recognised the distinctive tan and indigo of the Bajoran medical corps. She was distracted, her attention aimed entirely on a series of adjustments to one of the nearby bedside displays. Her dark hair was cut into an even bob and brushed smoothly away from her face, and the tone of her skin was oddly reminiscent of Tarkalean tea.

Bashir said nothing - not wanting to interrupt. Barely trusting himself to speak. But it was the petite Bajoran nurse who finally noticed him instead, and smiled. Her eyes had a touch of golden at the centre. "Hi."

Rolling to one side, he channelled all his energy into an effort to push himself from the bed. But even this concerted attempt was thwarted. He collapsed back onto the mattress, grimacing, gasping heavily - closing his eyes still tighter against a newly severe attack of nausea.

"Careful," said the unfamiliar nurse. "You're still recovering from several minor fractures, second degree burns, smoke inhalation, among other things. You ought to start feeling better with time, but you really mustn't try to get up too quickly."

So _that_ was why his hands were bandaged, fingers bound against each other like a pair of mummified paws. Momentarily silent, he recalled how the agony of hot metal had seared through the skin of his palms. There may have even been a moment when some part of him had stuck fast to the door. He reached up with one hand to brush a residual sting from across his eyes. But the nurse stopped him with a gentle but persistent grip upon his wrist.

With a glance over her shoulder, she stepped back to make way for a second Bajoran woman with slender shoulders and long hair the colour of fresh honey. _I remember you_, Bashir thought wearily. The newcomer was a doctor this time, one he had met at least once already. On the day when he visited Jaliya. With his elderly friend Taenor, and…

"How are you feeling?" she asked, resting the back of her hand briefly upon his forehead.

_How do you think_? Longing to shape his face into a sarcastic glare, the closest Bashir could manage was a vaguely queasy grimace. He tensed, curling briefly into a tight, pathetic ball. The too familiar dizzy wave swelled anew. It was slower to subside. But as it did, he became aware of the warmth of another hand at his back, and a new voice whispering in his ear.

_I know you, too_… This welcome, familiar sound was clear and strong, cutting through even the thickest fog even as it clenched around his thoughts.

"I was at a conference nearby," Major Kira explained as Bashir shifted tentatively to find her staring down at him. A sly grin crept up one corner of her mouth. "And _you've _been developing quite a reputation from what I'm told. Frontier heroics, indeed! If you could hear half the stories that have been circling around…"

She stopped, seeming to catch something in his eyes, and her smile faded. "But perhaps that's better left for another time," she conceded with a weary sigh.

"Frankly--" It was the long-haired doctor who broke the silence, shaking her head at the display on her open tricorder. "We can't say for sure how _any_ of you made it out alive."

_She's dead, Julian_. Bashir wondered if he would ever be able to think about Kendra Province again, without the same three words echoing repeatedly in his memory. Bringing his hands back into view, he cupped them slightly, and imagined that they still held on to the wooden, black-eyed doll. For a moment his throat clenched as if there was still a rope around it.

"Jaliya?" His voice came out as little more than a feeble croak. "What happened… to…?"

"We kept her here overnight, and most of the next day. I suspect she'll be back eventually. I had to send her home to get some rest."

A slight tensing of the unnamed doctor's lips told him enough. She was as unhopeful as he was that Jaliya Tal would be resting. But now those hard, grey eyes were fixed on her Human patient. "Which is what you should have been doing all along. I know it's important work you've been doing, but why didn't you tell anyone that you were so sick?"

"Sick?" He coughed, aware of a distant realisation that he'd been shivering under the covers. His skin felt as hot as if the fire was still around him, but he was ice cold at his core.

_Oh. Sick_. "I suppose… I didn't know. Or, wasn't sure."

He hadn't thought the Mundara plague was compatible with Human physiology. Everyone had said that it was impossible, ever since the very beginning. Assumptions were always too easy to make. Which was why he'd never once thought to inoculate himself…

_Another failure_.

He looked up suddenly to stare at Kira.

"Don't worry," the Major assured him, seeing that Julian's questioning expression had quickly turned to one of horror. "I've gotten all the right shots, same as everyone else. The Militia has done quite an effective job of setting up vaccination programs."

_A bit late for that, isn't it_? Bashir couldn't stop himself from thinking.

"How long has it been?" Still breathless, but he had to know.

The major's face tensed briefly, an expression so subtle that it would have escaped most people's notice. He could see that she was looking for a way to evade the answer.

"How _long_?"

"Two days," she replied. "I only just found out yesterday."

Bashir closed his eyes, squeezing still more tears from the corners. He bowed his head as if to hide.

Kira's hand continued to stroke his shoulder. "Julian, I'm so sorry about the girl."

"Her _name_ was Teyanha."

"Of course. Teyanha," she corrected herself. But words choked her, and the hurt in her voice too closely mirrored his own.

"There's been a collection," she persevered. "Here. On the station. All over Bajor. First Minister Shakaar has already condemned the actions of everyone responsible. They buried her this morning. I was there. It was… Julian?"

He sensed that she wasn't about to leave him alone. Not until he looked into her eyes. Blinking away tears, he forced himself to peer over the edge of both tightly bandaged hands.

Kira's dark eyes were wide and sincere, and sparkled a little too brightly. "I just thought you'd want to know, we've almost raised enough funds to rebuild the orphanage. No-one's going to be without a home. And you can see the entire valley from the new memorial at the top of the hill."

"But it's not enough, is it?" Bashir whispered.

Somehow, it would never be enough.

* * *

__

**The End. For Now.**


End file.
